Yesterday we received news regarding the biopsy Cynthia had re a mark on her big toe. There is no sign of melanoma. So that is good news. But you never really just hit the reset button. Events like this remind us of our mortality and serve to remind us of what is really important in life. During the 10 days of waiting we tried to continue to enjoy our travels and we prayed. While we definitely wanted the test to be negative, we couldn’t bring ourselves to pray that somehow God would change the result. That is not the sort of faith we have. What happens, happens. Bad things happen to good people. After all we follow a saviour who experienced unjust suffering. The challenge of faith is to believe that God is with us, come what may. To believe that we can find meaning and know love and grace, come what may.
That is easier said than done and it may sound glib, given we have been spared the ordeal of surgery and all the feared struggle that goes with a cancer diagnosis.
This week Cynthia’s biopsy was negative. This week we learned of others who have had their fears confirmed. We feel for them. We will walk with them. God walks with them.
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36 As it is written:
“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:35-39 New International Version