So Come What May

We seem to be surrounded with lots of young family and friends who've been diagnosed with cancer. A month ago my friend from Jerome, Cami Bingham, lost her little two year old to neuroblastoma.

Lance went to school with Marty Meyer and as they stayed friends Marty sang in various quartets with Lance, taught him to play the bag pipes, and after he got married they became our neighbors. Emily and I had play dates and picnics all the time with our kids. He passed away with stage 4 melanoma cancer at the age of 34, leaving Emily a widow at age 26 with five little children ages 1-6.

Our brother in law, Charlie, was diagnosed this year with liver cancer. I'm always stunned to hear about people with cancer but when it's family it brings it to a whole new level of fear and anxiety.

We have been praying and fasting for these families for the past year and they've each witnessed many miracles. Even though Kenzie and Marty passed away, the miracles were still there and prayers were still answered. Answers to prayers aren't always about 100% healing and even though we pray for healing, we always end with the Lord's will.

It's interesting to think about cancer, I watched a PBS documentary on it which was so fascinating. Basically cancer has always been a part of life, thousands of years before Christ was on the earth people still had cancer. Cancer isn't a new plague in this modern era, we just have more advanced medicines and technologies to detect it. What's interesting is that cancer isn't biased. It doesn't matter if you're rich or poor, healthy or sick, young or old, highly educated or simple minded, or anything. Cancer strikes all walks of life. No amount of money in the world will ever be a guarantee of survival. Cancer is awful. There's so much red tape in the medical world surrounding treatments and images and testing and drugs.

I wish there was a metal detector device used for cancer. Like, here, just walked through this scanner-type-doorway everyday you get home and when you hear the beep you know you've got the beginning stages of cancer and need to seek treatment right away. Then the survival rate would be much higher and it wouldn't cost your entire life's savings and retirement just to get a prescription, and the quality of life would be much better during treatment. For those that don't want to know if they have cancer they can just turn the scanner off. Easy as pie. And I wouldn't charge a dime for the scanner or to have the scanner installed, because everything in life should be free.

But life isn't easy as pie and nothing in life is ever free and if Heavenly Father wanted a device like that then one of the millions of brilliant minds on this earth would've invented it already. I don't know why cancer is so selective in who it takes captive nor why some people survive years with it and others die suddenly.

But I do know this: Jesus Christ is the Savior and Creator of everyone and everything. He knows the end from the beginning and is omnipotent. He is love and everything that is good in this world. I see Him while looking at Cora's little toes to tasting a juicy raspberry to hearing Lance sing beautiful music to feeling the wind on my face. He is in everything. He is in control and wants nothing but to see us be happy and to return to Him one day. As the hymn says, "I believe in Christ, so come what may."