I’m
sitting on a lounge chair in my backyard. I hear the sound of birds
and the sounds of my husband and son as they clean up the debris from
a fallen tree. I am tired. It is impossible to sleep through the
night, and naps don’t come easily. Apart from a constant tiredness,
I am doing well. In two days, it will be two weeks since I had a
mastectomy and breast reconstruction.
I would like to think that
this marks the end of breast cancer in my life. Only God knows if it
does. I do know that what he has taught me will continue to bless me,
no matter what he brings into my life.
It was October of 1992 when I
first put my name and the word cancer together in the same
sentence. The scare turned out to be only a benign fibroadenoma. Then
in December we moved to Vermont.
One month later, while still
adjusting to what seemed like the extreme cold of our first Vermont
winter, I discovered a lump and decided it must be a cyst. That seemed
to be the only logical explanation so soon after the October surgery,
and besides I didn’t have a doctor. In September of 1993, the truth
of the cancer was revealed.
Cancer is never easy. The
first time, no matter what the particulars of the diagnosis are, you
feel like the word cancer alone will consume you.
From the first scare to the
reality of cancer, God has schooled me in spite of my reluctance to be
his pupil. During my most recent period of cancer, from the
questionable mammogram in January 2000 until the major surgery on
April 24, God has allowed me to latch onto three principles that have
been my comfort.
I have had many questionable
mammograms. There have been times when I have yearned for a return to
normal life. Normal life is difficult enough without the complications
that the threat of cancer can bring. Normal days are filled with
never-ending demands and with my ongoing struggle to love well those
whom God has placed in my life. I craved normal life because, in spite
of all the stress, it is free of the pit-of-the-stomach fear that the
uncertainty of cancer can give. But putting my hope in a return to
normal life was not the answer. This life holds no hope outside of the
eternal hope that only Christ can give (2 Cor. 4:16–18).
That’s principle number one.
Normal life is not a sufficient object for our hope. Our hope must
be in our all-sufficient Savior and the eternal glory we have with
him.
When my first biopsy was
scheduled, I was overwhelmed by the thought of being laid out
vulnerable and unconscious before a surgeon I barely knew and his
medical team whom I knew even less. Then I was reminded that this was
true only when I looked at my situation from an earthly perspective.
The reality was that I would be vulnerable before God (Ps. 91).
Here is principle number two. We
are always vulnerable before God. The circumstances of surgery strip
us of any pretence of being in control. As always, we can entrust
ourselves to God’s omnipotent love and care.
I have a friend who told me
that she had been “called” to be a cancer patient. I recoiled from
those words. But after our conversation, I thought more about what she
had said. I realized that I would most likely be a cancer patient in
the same way that I would wear a shirt that has itchy hairs in it. I
would wear it because there was no choice, and I would constantly be
trying to shed my uncomfortable clothing. Would I regard such a shirt
in the same way if I knew it had been woven by my heavenly father?
Nothing catches God by
surprise. He did not send me courage as a last-minute answer to prayer
when he suddenly realized I was headed for a biopsy. No, on the
contrary, “All the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be” (Ps. 139:16). Why should I pull away
from what God has allowed to be? Couldn’t he have changed my
situation at any moment along the way? If he loves me and he is also
sovereign, then I am in this situation either to be taught something
or to be used by God to teach someone else. Why should I recoil at
what God has chosen to do in my life?
This is principle number
three. We must rest in every situation, since God has allowed us to
be in it with his glory and our good in mind. In his hands, every
situation can become a good gift.
If I seem to have weathered my
bouts of cancer well, do not put me on a different spiritual plane
than yourself. If you start to say, “I could never handle cancer as
well as Joanie Doe has,” swallow your words. God’s grace is always
sufficient, but he gives grace to each of us for our own “story,”
not for someone else’s. Give praise only to our Lord, who gives
grace through the principles found in his Word. Take heart when other
believers find grace in those principles. Rejoice with them, since
grace is a treasure that belongs to all of our Father’s children.
Used with
Permission. The author is the wife of Pastor
Stephen D. Doe of Covenant OPC in Barre, Vt. Reprinted from New
Horizons, October 2000.
