Last year I was diagnosed with breast cancer in September. The cancer journey takes you on a roller coaster ride with your emotions and feelings, not to mention what’s happening to your body physically with all the side effects of treatment. At times I was angry, at times I cried a lot and I asked God a lot of questions because I couldn’t comprehend being given this experience. Cancer is random and my nursing brain knows that, but I struggled with being able to identify myself as a cancer patient. The people around me whose faith is strong ( and whose faith has probably been tested), lifted me up and carried me throughout my treatment. A book shared with me by a woman of strong faith, contained words that gave me comfort and hope, on a topic that I constantly question, and that topic is suffering. The following is an excerpt from a book titled “It’s not supposed to be this way”, by LysaTerkeurst.
“Suffering. The very thing that makes us wonder if God is cruel. The very thing that makes us question God’s goodness. The very thing I couldn’t understand in that hospital bed. The very thing I don’t want to be part of God’s plan ever,ever,ever. Not for me. Not for you. Not for any human.
But here’s the craziest thing of all. God doesn’t want you or me to suffer. But He will allow it in doses to increase our trust. Our pain and suffering isn’t to hurt us. It’s to save us. To save us from a life where we are self-reliant, self-satisfied, self-absorbed, and set up for the greatest pain of all…..separation from God.
To trust God is to trust His timing. To trust God is to trust His way. God loves me too much to answer my prayers at any other time than the right time and in any other way than the right way. In the quietness of all that doesn’t feel right, this truth does.
This doesn’t change the fact that I want all of this to go away. I want happy. I want normal. I want easy. I want to wake up tomorrow with my husband’s arms around me, as he assures me that it was all just a bad dream. That’s what I want. Because that’s all I can conceive as a good plan.
However, God sees things I can’t see. He knows things I don’t know. Only God knows what the good plan is and what it will take to get me there. And most of all He knows, if I saw the full road ahead, I would stop about halfway through and never choose to continue with His plan. I would think the cost is too high, the path too scary, the way too daunting, and the enemy too frightening. No human is strong enough to withstand seeing too much of God’s plan in advance. It must be revealed daily. And we must be led to it and through it slowly.”
Lysa Terkeurst wrote this book at a time where she was undergoing breast cancer, a twisted bowel ( which required life saving surgery), and a marriage breakdown. For Lysa to be able to find purpose in her own suffering, helped me with my own doubts and questions. I hope that this helps those struggling with their own pain, and those struggling with the many ways that Covid 19 has impacted our lives on so many levels.