Over the years you gather what can only be described as cancer ‘lore’. ‘Everyone is different’, ‘Most people are cured’, ‘The cure is worse than the cancer.‘ It’s that last one that is hitting me hard at present. No pain, no nausea, no hair-loss but the tiredness is intense and the disorientation alarming. It is sometimes hard to gather thought and concentrate on much for any length of time. And my face is bloated. My brother was quite taken aback at my appearance yesterday when he called. Brothers don’t hold back! That’s the steroids. Part of the cure.
There’s not a lot can be done about any of this. Like many of life’s most difficult experiences it’s something you go through drawing on whatever resources you have around you and within you. The support of family and friends continues to be a major source of strength. There can be no greater privilege than knowing you are being upheld in prayer. Also I have never been more convinced of the power of God’s Word to establish something within than goes deeper than psychological contentment. I’ve taken to ‘quarrying‘ a verse from my daily readings, writing it out on a card, memorising it, and bringing it to mind at various points through the rest of the day, especially when things are hard. I like to think that in this way eternal truth is being woven into my inner being and proof against anything that would obscure my knowledge of God’s love and goodness. So yesterday it was Psalm 16: 7-8:
‘I have set the Lord always before me.
Because he is at my right hand
I shall not be shaken.’
Simple words but could there be anything more profound? To remember who God is in all His creative and redemptive power. To realise that He is as close to you as the friend who grasps your hand. To know that from Him comes the strength that is needed for every challenge that threatens to bring you to the end of yourself.
It is truths like these that bring the assurance that even the darkest experiences that fall to us in the providense of God have a purpose. I know many people find that hard to live with but it is something I continually come up against in my ‘quarrying’ and my praying. The biggest tragedy of this time for me would be to come out of it and be no closer to Christ and no more established in His ways. I suppose in the end that will not be for me to judge but I believe that at some point I will look back on these days with thanksgiving. Peter was talking about persecution but there is surely something here for all our darkest days:
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls. (1 Peter 1: 3-9)
