Cancer. Just the sound of the word fills our hearts with fear and dread. It's a terrifying diagnosis. For many of us, this disease threatens to rob us of our health, our energy, our vitality, and our sense of well-being. It endangers our ability to provide for ourselves and take care of our families. It may steal our identity, our sense of purpose and significance. It can ruin our best-laid plans, destroy our hopes and dreams. It has taken friends and loved ones from us far too soon.Cancer is a powerful enemy. But it's not all-powerful. . . .
This is the opening quote of a gospel tract entitled What Cancer Can't Do. I keep a supply of them on hand because I regularly come across people who are suffering from cancer or know somebody who is. Of course the point of the tract is: God is the one who is more powerful than cancer, and He is the one "who comforts us in all our affliction" (2 Cor. 1:4).
Just this morning I was at a local gym working out, when I ran into an older brother in the Lord. He doesn't go to our church, but is a member at another evangelical church closer to Boston. I met this guy some time ago, and as we talked, he informed me that his wife has cancer. I promised to pray for her, and even paid a visit to their house on one occasion.
This morning I asked him how she was doing, and he said she's finishing up chemotherapy treatment that has been going on for about a year. After the first cycle of treatments, the doctors found that the tumor had not shrunk but had actually grown. Needless to say, this news was very disheartening to this couple who have been married for nearly half a century.
Yet as this brother updated me on this difficult situation, he said, "But we have our devotions each morning out in the sunroom. That's been our sweetest time of the day as we read our Bible and pray together. Some time ago my wife told me that she's changed the nature of her prayer. At first she was praying, 'Lord, take this cancer away.' Now we're praying, 'Lord, do whatever You want. We give this cancer to You.'"
He said this with a lump in his throat and tears in his eyes. This brother and his dear wife have found a sweetness in their suffering.
This experience is not unique to them, but is the "mournful joy" of every believer in Christ. The apostle Paul said it perfectly:
We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.... So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.- 2 Cor. 4:8-9, 16-18
Shortly after returning from the gym, I found out that another Christian brother had just died of heart disease. He was in the prime of his life and leaves behind his dear wife and two young boys. Thankfully, his wife knows Christ, as do other members in his family. For them, there is a sweetness in their suffering.
John Bunyan, author of Pilgrim's Progress, wrote, "In times of affliction we commonly meet with the sweetest experiences of the love of God."
Thank you, Father, that nothing can separate us from your love, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord, and that we are more than conquerors through him (Rom. 8:37-39).