Blessings arrive in unexpected packages\u201d\u201din my case, cancer.<\/p>\n
Those of us with potentially fatal diseases\u201d\u201dand there are millions in America today\u201d\u201dfind ourselves in the odd position of coping with our mortality while trying to fathom God’s will. Although it would be the height of presumption to declare with confidence What It All Means, Scripture provides powerful hints and consolations.<\/p>\n
The first is that we shouldn’t spend too much time trying to answer the why questions: Why me? Why must people suffer? Why can’t someone else get sick? We can’t answer such things, and the questions themselves often are designed more to express our anguish than to solicit an answer.<\/p>\n
I don’t know why I have cancer, and I don’t much care. It is what it is\u201d\u201da plain and indisputable fact. Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly, great and stunning truths begin to take shape. Our maladies define a central feature of our existence: We are fallen. We are imperfect. Our bodies give out.<\/p>\n
But despite this\u201d\u201dbecause of it\u201d\u201dGod offers the possibility of salvation and grace. We don’t know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between now and the moment we meet our Creator face-to-face.<\/p>\n