Wise Words

I think this is one of wisest, most beautiful pieces I have read about faith in hard times, particularly as related to breast cancer. The author, Peter Chin, is a pastor whose wife was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer in the middle of a difficult period in their lives: financial struggles, professional struggles, even victimization by constant crime in their neighborhood.

The underlying topic of Chin's article in the August 2013 issue Christianity Today is that age-old question, resurrected every time the newspaper headlines blaze with school shootings, genocide, and other horrifying illustrations of the evil tearing around this world on a violent rampage: How can a good, all-powerful God allow bad things to happen?

If anyone seems qualified to question God's goodness and power, it's Chin. He gave up a career in medicine to become a pastor and, even then took the difficult path of starting a new church in a rough intercity neighborhood. He's like a Platinum Card-carrying member of the Christian church.

And yet. And yet there don't seem to be any decent perks with these credentials. His young wife is diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer (very difficult to treat) and his church is tanking and his house robbed several over and then his insurance decides the cancer is a pre-existing condition that it won't cover. Chin writes of this suffering and his resulting despair and bitterness toward God: how could God do this to me after all I've done for Him?

The question brings Chin to his knees and back to his Bible for answers. His eyes are opened to verses he had so often preached. He writes,

"Suffering shakes you with such force that it separates your true thoughts and beliefs from anything to which you simply pay lip service. This process is painful, no doubt. But without it, it is impossible to know where our beliefs fall short of what Scripture truly teaches."

He sees that God never promises we won't suffer or that nothing bad will happen to us. It's a Great American Heresy: hard work + faith = pain-free, successful living. Rather, God's promise is that He will never leave our side during suffering or desert us to our troubles.

And that is what Chin's family experienced: the comfort and encouragement of an ever-present God -- often through the kind words and deeds of His people -- plus some miraculous evidence of this loving presence: two healthy children born DURING and after chemotherapy. For God "delights in those who fear Him, who put their hope in His unfailing love" (Psalm 147:11) and "is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine" (Ephesians 3:20).

As Chin writes,

"I had asked God for a healthy church, and he gave us two healthy children instead. I had asked for success, and he gave us salvation. I had prayed that I might witness good things in my life, and he showed me miraculous ones instead. To be honest, he did not answer a single prayer request in the way that I had asked, but instead gave me things so much deeper and richer."

 Wise words learned in the Valley of the Shadow of Death -- that dark place we sometimes must pass through to be enLightened.

"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
    I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
    your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me." (Psalm 23:4)