Cancer Sucks

My eyes still closed smelling the Lilacs in my room this morning I smiled as I woke up. I was tired but it gave me inspiration wake up. I love this time of year when everything is becoming greener more alive.

Today was the Relay for Life event for Tacoma. ACS organizes the relays. We had several fundraisers @Expedia where I work and we bought T-shirts that say "Cancer Sucks" for the Relay. I wore my "Cancer Sucks" t-shirt today. It's a pretty frank statement but it seems to be popular. I googled it just to see what would come up and found this site for teens who are affected by cancer. Click here to see it.

There have been so many people in my life affected by Cancer. The first person I remember to get cancer that I knew was my cousin Stacy who got Leukemia as a little girl. I remember I was a few years older than her and didn't understand at the time what cancer was. The only thing I knew was that it scared the adults in my life and so it scared me. My grandmother who I was very close to growing up passed away from Colon Cancer a few years later. She was the first person to die that I loved and at 11 years old I really didn’t understand why.

At her funeral sitting in the pew I didn't hear a word of the message. I listened to the children playing outside the chapel in the school next to it. I felt lost without her and started to hate the word cancer and God for awhile. I didn't understand why a loving God would let someone who loved so much, gave so much and had so much left to give die.

There were others in my life that got cancer but none that made as huge of an impact as my Grandmother's until my first pastor after I became a Christian Dan Vasquez got cancer and passed away. I will never forget that last Easter sermon where he shared his love letters from the church while he was fighting cancer. 24 hours of prayer chains and it didn't work. We were trusting on a miracle that did not happen. I asked God again the question "why would a loving God let someone who loved so much, gave so much and had so much left to give die?"

I don't know the answer to that question. I could guess and I could try to come up with reasons but ultimate lately it's all selfish. They are in heaven with an awesome God so who am I to want them still on earth. It's just that we miss them. The treasure is in the promise and security of knowing that we will see them again. We will give them a huge hug and say "thank you".

There have been many others who have been touched by cancer that I have known and it's amazing to see God heal some of them. I just have to trust that God knows what He is doing when I don't understand. He loves us even in those times where we doubt Him and question. We will never know why God allows cancer to take those people who we love and could see a future for here on earth to do good. We just have to trust that He can see the whole picture of the puzzle while we only see the few pieces before us that seem to fit.


Fruit: Love
Song in my Head: More - Matthew West
Verse: Psalm 36: 7 How priceless is your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings. 8 They feast on the abundance of your house; you give them drink from your river of delights. 9 For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light