Well placed

I've been praying for a woman I know who has breast cancer. Last week, she found out it spread to her brain. I've also been praying for a woman I know who has rectal cancer. In a short period of time, it has come back three times.

We all know people who are suffering. Maybe we are those people. No one has a trump card in the conversation about suffering. I've been hesitant to write this post because God forbid (seriously) that I think I can write about suffering. I know plenty of people who can. My mother was one of them. Christ--He actually does hold the trump card on suffering. No one has suffered like Him.

I've watched suffering, I've prayed for suffering to end, and frankly, many times, I've had faith crises over ongoing suffering in the lives of people I know. Carolyn James wrote a book I love entitled When Life and Beliefs Collide, and that's exactly how I'd describe a faith crisis: when what you think you know about God is challenged by what God does. This post is not about suffering. It's about those very faith crises that are often the result--in my own life at least--and the ways the Lord has brought me through them.

As a Christian, I treasure Romans 8:28 with all my heart. It's where God promises to work all things out for my good. Wow. What a promise. If I'm honest (and I'm trying to be), my definition of good and God's definition of good aren't always the same, and that's where the crisis starts.

Around the same time I found out I was pregnant, mom got put on Hospice care. Her body was too weak to continue treatment, and untreated brain cancer certainly qualifies for end-of-life care. She had a couple of MRIs scheduled while she was off the treatment. In anticipation of the first one, I remember literally crying to Ryan: I trust God, but I wish I knew what I was trusting Him for!

I knew from Scripture that God could heal. I knew He could make lame, too (Deuteronomy 32:39). I needed somewhere to confidently place my hope and my expectations. I know God is good, but what if His good and my good don't match up this time? I know God is loving, but sometimes the loving thing to do is to burn off the dross. I trust God, but that doesn't mean He isn't going to make me or my loved ones suffer. According to Scripture, quite the opposite is actually true. "For those whom the Lord loves He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives" (Hebrews 12:6). And even more: "it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe in him, but also to suffer for him" (emphasis mine, Philippians 1:29). Granted to suffer?

I trusted God, but I wanted to know what I was trusting Him for.

The way this physical world works, the likelihood that mom's cancer had grown was high. Untreated cancer typically grows. I wanted to know: How could I sleep the night before, much more, walk into her doctor's appointment with her, knowing I was about to be told the cancer had grown? that she had less time than she had the last time we were there? It was like willingly walking into doom. It's one thing to know something bad is true. It's another thing to willingly sit in a room and be told the awful truth you're already living out. 

Before that appointment, God showed me Psalm 25:3: "No one whose hope is in You will ever be put to shame..." (and other passages like it: Psalm 34:5, Isaiah 49:23). And this is how the Holy Spirit has applied it to my heart since: I can't put God in a box and foretell how He is going to make Romans 8:28 true in any given situation. In fact, I should be thankful He's so much greater than my ability to figure Him out. In His love, He knows my feeble mind needs somewhere to securely land. Simple as it sounds, this thought brought me profound comfort then, and now: Per Psalm 25, I don't know how the situation at hand will turn out, but I know if I place my hope and faith in Christ, He will prove them well placed.

We received a miracle that day, and mom's MRI showed no obvious cancer growth. Untreated cancer, but no growth. That's actually not the point of this post, but to God be the glory. I walked out unashamed.

Here's the point of this post: Mom's sickness did ultimately end in death. She didn't get the healing I asked for. She got more. She got Him. My faith and hope were proven well placed on both occasions--the miracle of no tumor growth and the better miracle of eternity in heaven. I am unashamed at having trusted Christ with her.

And that's the other point about faith crises that I actually love. God perseveres His saints. "He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor. 1:8).

If our faith is well placed, it's because He does the placing.

Yes, we have a part, but the mysterious, wonderful truth is that even our part is enabled by Him: "Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill His good purpose" (Philippians 2:12&13).

The Christians who are still Christians after immense suffering are evidence that God perseveres us. I became a Christian when I was a child, but I have since thought if I wasn't a Christian as an adult, this truth would probably have convinced my analytical, commitment-afraid mind: Surrender your life to Christ because once you do, He keeps you until the end. You're engraved on His hands (Isaiah 49:16). The arrangement between you and Him is permanent. Christ, the Groom, will betroth Himself to you, His bride, in a marriage that will never end--no matter what struggles you face. Talk about confidence in the middle of a faith crisis.

At the beginning of this post, I mentioned two women I am praying for. Two women, who in my opinion, have already met their suffering quota for life on this earth. And not just them, but their families, too. As an onlooker, I call to mind what the Lord taught me with mom. I pray that His nearness during the trouble would be sweeter even than the trouble is bitter. And I pray that He'd persevere His saints who are suffering because sometimes, that's the best indicator of God in the aftermath of suffering anyway: that His saints still believe. And I pray that the hope of the one suffering, and of those carrying her burdens in prayer, would prove well placed, because, after all, He has given us His word on that.



About three months before the miracle of heaven for mom