hating cancer is making me plunge deeper into the Gospel of Jesus

He took my sins and my sorrows,
He made them His very own;
He bore the burden to Calvary,
And suffered and died alone.
(verse 2, I Stand Amazed in the Presence)

As I write this, I sit beside the hospital bed of my napping daughter who is wearing a t-shirt that reads, “God is SO MUCH BIGGER than pediatric cancer!” That is our life now, the sorrow we bear. So when I sing and proclaim a song that says ‘he took… my sorrows, he made them his very own’ the words have more significance than at any other point in my life so far. However, there is also a realization in times like these that as far as diseases go cancer is the least of humanity’s concern in comparison to sin!

I am comforted to know that Jesus is with us in our sorrows, I really am, I can’t tell you what a sense of help that brings. With us in sorrow is huge, but I am eternally indebted and in awe at the reality that Jesus ‘took my sins’. In days like these when life is overwhelming and out of control you realize how absolutely powerless we are against some aspects of life. There is absolutely nothing I can physically do to take away Kate’s tumor, I am in a sense powerless to help. How much more powerless are we then as sinners coming to a holy God, but hope is not lost. Here is how the story goes…

Romans 5: ⁶You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. ⁸But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Hating cancer is making me more fully awake to my desperate need for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, I have no other hope! I have heard this kind of talk all my life, but desperate times have a clarifying effect, helping you receive truth more deeply.  Some have said that we all have a need to continually keep preaching the gospel to ourselves, over and over again returning to the point of our need and His supply. I absolutely agree and pray that Jesus’ life will be our life, and His sacrifice our story of salvation.

We are struggling through this time and we are often weak and wavering. Don’t ever read these words and think that there is not a fight to keep holding on to these truths. One of the main reasons I keep typing away is to remind myself and bring perspective back to me, as I go through dark days that can cloud all judgment. I pray that God’s Spirit will continually plunge us deeper into the wonderful, marvelous Gospel of Jesus Christ.