This question was posted on a breast cancer Web site and it stopped me in my tracks. This dear, YOUNG, woman had testified in church of God’s healing her of leukemia, but worries what people will think of God if her remission ends. Here is my response to one part of her post, “Being a Christian is a lot harder than not being one.”
Dear Jane,
The world says it is a crutch, while many believers would say, “Wait a minute! Jesus said His burden is light!” Whatever Jesus means by “light” it does not mean painless or effortless. One of the reasons being a Christian is harder is that we know that God is love, and so we struggle to reconcile that fact with the temptation to feel unloved when we suffer. The world does not know that God is love, and so uses human suffering as proof that God doesn’t exist. Believers know that God is sovereign, yet disease is everywhere, and so we blame Satan, ourselves, or God. It must be someone’s fault, right? Otherwise how can we make sense of it? And round and round we go …
Trying to make sense of it makes my head feel like exploding.
Here’s what I know—I had breast cancer sixteen years ago and testified in church of my healing.
Three years ago I got a different breast cancer in the same breast, and testified in church of my healing. Both times the cancer exposed emotional wounds that required healing. During the second bout I wailed at God, “Did I really need to have cancer TWICE to ‘get in touch with’ these feelings???” I didn’t wait for God’s answer then, but now that I see the amazing emotional healing that emerged from the second journey through cancer, I say, “Yes, I had to have cancer twice.”
