Still Learning

One thing that keep coming up in this trial is how much I really have to trust God. In the beginning we read an article by John Piper called, "Don't waste your cancer." One of the points he made was that you will waste your cancer if you seek comfort from your odds rather than from God. He says, " The design of God in your cancer is not to train you in the rationalistic, human calculation of odds. The world gets comfort from their odds. Not Christians. Some count their chariots (percentages of survival) and some count their horses (side effects of treatment), but we trust in the name of the LORD our God (Psalm 20:7). God’s design is clear from 2 Corinthians 1:9, “We felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.” The aim of God in your cancer (among a thousand other good things) is to knock props out from under our hearts so that we rely utterly on him." That lesson had hit me again this weekend. Everyone has told us that David's cancer has a 90 to 95% cure rate which we like to hear. My dad has a 14% 5 year survival rate. Which we don't like to hear. Either way, it is tempting to listen to the rates whether good or bad. I tried to tell myself not to get too excited about David's 90% rate because God is still soverign, and in reality it really doesn't mean a whole lot. I do have to say that it is always in the back of my mind. This Friday, when the doctors told us that he has so few white blood cells, that a paper cut or dirt on a carrot could give him an infection that would put him in the hospital, it really brought me back to the Lord. The funny thing is I thought I already learned this lesson. Being a police officer's wife, I worried about him every night when he left for work. We were newly married and he worked the night shift. Every unexpected knock on the door(twice in the middle of the night), I immediately thought the worst. It was a very good thing for our marriage because I knew that every night he went to work, it could be his last. It definitely made me treat him a lot differently, and we kept very short accounts. I always kissed him and told him how much I loved him. As he promoted and got a desk job, I worried less and less about him being in danger. However, in the last few years, his job has him getting called out to bad areas usually in the middle of the night, and I have to trust the Lord for his life again. Whenever people asked me "Don't you worry that your husband is a police officer?" I would usually answer Yes, a little, but I know that he is not going to die because he is a police officer. Psalm 139 says that God has ordained his days before there was one of them, and if he dies it will be because the Lord has planned it from before the foundation of the earth, not because of his job. I now have to tell myself the same thing about cancer. God has all of our days numbered and as much as we would like to be in control we aren't. Any of us could die at any time for any reason. God is good and He is in control. Knowing that, it should really encourage all of us to treat the people around us better and live lives that are bringing God glory all the time. It is one of those things that I know in my mind, but it is good that God is reminding me to do it. I hope it encourages you to do the same!