When I was eight years old my parents went through a bitter
divorce. I was clueless and had never even seen them speak a cross word to one
another. My little world came crashing down overnight. My mom moved from
southern to northern California so I only got to see her on holidays and
summers. In the seventh grade I decided to move in with her and my step dad and
go to school there. It was a tiny school out in the country with less than 10
people in my class. It was so small in fact that they joined classes to save
money on staff and so we were in the same room as the eighth graders. One of
those students happened to be the girl that is now my wife.
I would never wish divorce on any couple or family. But I
also wouldn’t change my situation in a million years because God brought
something beautiful out of the brokenness.
My wife and I had been married for only nine months when her
mother, 47 at the time, was diagnosed with cancer. Two weeks after getting the
news that she was sick my wife and I packed up our little apartment on campus
in Reno, NV and headed east for North Carolina. She finished her race less than
a year later and went home to be with the Lord. People aren’t supposed to die
at 48 and our girls never had the chance to meet their Grandma Linda. But in
that time of caring for her family we found a church that forever changed our
lives. What we thought would be a short intermission became a life calling.
It seems everyone has been touched by cancer’s curse at some
point in their life. It’s an ugly disease and it’s just not fair. Let me be
clear that I DO NOT BELIEVE that God gave my wife’s mother cancer. But in the
midst of the tragedy he was at work guiding our path toward yours.
See if my parents never divorced then I wouldn’t have met my
wife. If my wife’s mother hadn’t become sick we never would have moved to
Western North Carolina, went into ministry and started writing this blog.
He is the God of meaning in meaningless situations. He is
the God of hope in hopeless circumstances. He is the God of purpose in the
middle of life’s messes. He is the great redeemer and we can trust that He is
bigger than whatever it is we are dealing with. We can trust Him.
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of
those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” – Romans 8:28
NIV
Jesus is proof of the lengths that God will go to, lovingly working
for your good because you are called according to his purpose. If you have made
it through and can see God’s hand praise him for what he’s already done. If you
are in the middle then trust that he is in control, he loves you forever and he
IS taking care of you whether you can see it or not.
Most everyone I know looks at cancer as a terrible, life-stealing disease. I see it that way when I see it happen in others. As a physician, I’ve watched as little children lost their mother to cancer. As a son, I watched as my mother succumbed to cancer. Cancer is bad on her side of the family and I’ve already outlived her by several years.
ReplyDeleteI already feel as though I’m living on borrowed time. But cancer doesn’t scare me like it scares others. Why not? Because the moment each of us is born, we are crawling, then walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Try as we might, we cannot avoid the end of our life. As our end drawns near, many may spend all their children’s inheritence just to buy a few more months of time, but the end is as certain as time. In the end, we all will die.
My life has not been an easy one. As a result, I side with Paul in that I struggle between wanting to stay here and live and serve my God, or to desire to depart to be with my God who created me. If I had the choice and were single, I would choose the latter. But for the sake of my wife and two precious daughters, I would choose to stay.
If cancer enters my life and shortens it, I will not be angry, I will not be sad, I will not be afraid. Rather I will welcome it as one welcomes the arrival of a missionary plane when far from home, knowing it will take you to your loved ones. When my time comes, it will come in the full knowledge of my God. It may not be FROM Him, but it will be His will. If it were not, He would not allow it.
May the end of my road not show me to be a double-talker.
Tom Bunnow, MD (missionary doctor in Papua New Guinea)