Turbo Cancer: Day 93 - September 12, 2022
Faith
On this day, last year, my mom wrote:
“So, on 9-7, I was very short of breath, wheezing and tired. I went to Tinley Park, University of Chicago. Ended up admitted to Ingalls with hypervolemia, congestive heart failure, pleural effusion. Treated with lasix, oxygen and rest. Home 9/10.
Margaret was here. 😊 We had a great visit. Still tired but breathing easier.
Very good care at Ingalls. Follow up with Dr. J and heart doctor.
“My cancer could be a gift- a special token of your care. I weep to think it could be.” “
Every time my mom and I talked to a doctor, I asked questions. I wanted them to tell us what had happened. I wanted them to tell us what had changed. I wanted them to explain how my mom’s condition had come to be.
Everything had changed. Every single thing in the world had changed. I wanted answers.
I wanted the people in the white coats to say the words out loud.
My mom had questions, too.
However, she didn’t direct her questions toward the doctors. When we were talking to doctors, my mom smiled politely, while I challenged and raged. She knew that they didn’t have the answers.
She pointed her questions directly toward God.
On this day, in her journal, she quoted:
“My cancer could be a gift - a special token of your care.”
What is that supposed to mean?
My mom was suffering, and it was getting worse. She was being held down by the pain in her groin. She was trapped under the weight of her leg.
Her mind was alive and active, but her body was an anchor.
To me, it did not look like a gift. It looked like an attack. It was as if she had mindlessly wandered onto a battlefield, without a sword or a shield. She was surrounded by the enemy.
Surrounded by a tiny, torturous, microscopic enemy.
How could that be a gift?
My mom was suffering.
Her body was falling apart.
She was being tortured from the inside.
How could that have been a gift? How could she have been stuck in that body, thinking of her condition as a gift?
The answer is faith.
Her faith in God was so strong that she accepted her pain as a part of His plan for her.
She didn’t know the reason behind her misery. She didn’t need to know.
She accepted her fate because she had faith that there was a reason.
My mom believed the stories of The Bible. She believed that those stories happened, and continue to happen.
My mom believed that Jesus Christ was the son of God. She believed that He suffered in order to save us from the temptation of sin.
To save us from evil.
To offer us a home, in heaven.
To save us from ourselves.
My mom believed that God loved his son.
My mom believed that God loved his son, and that he allowed his son to suffer.
And my mom believed that God loved her.
My mom believed that God loved her, and that he allowed her to suffer.
And she had faith that He had a reason.
When my mother was dying, we girls wondered why God would choose to deprive us of her and leave us alone to deal with our dad. Dad was a difficult person. She was the one who explained us to him and him to us. We knew he loved us, but he was hard to please and quick-tempered and impatient. Her illness was his nemesis. There was nothing he could do to make things go his way.
When she died, she took more than half of him with her. He wandered the house crying out, “My baby! My baby is gone!” He wanted to die and we begged him to try to go on for the grandkids.
We took him to the doctor, who put him on an antidepressant. I’m not a fan of drugs, but it took the edge off of his personality And we no longer had Mom as a buffer and had to find a way to communicate with him. We learned to be more patient with him, and he learned to be more careful in how he treated us.
We comforted and made sure he wasn’t alone much. Some days the grandkids kept him company. He often made the rounds for breakfast or lunch, taking one of the kids home with him. Homeschooling was a blessing.
The truth is that, had he died first, we would not have mourned him the way we did our mom. But during the seven years we had him alone, we developed a relationship that might not have been possible otherwise. And when he died, we truly mourned that loss.
I believe that was the purpose of Mom’s death. I don’t know why she had to suffer so much, but maybe it was for Dad to see us care for her. Maybe that gave him the ability to trust that we would care for him.
The stories in the Bible are true. Jesus is the only one to defeat the evil.
Your mom felt that her soul was being purified by suffering.
If you can’t understand that the biblical stories are true, it’s difficult to grasp the meaning of suffering to cure from the evil.
Reread your Bible, meditate over the words of Jesus.
You will start to understand the meaning of the Word.
Pray.