Healing

I've always shyed away from evangelical language, feeling like those "lofty, spiritual" words were too cheesey to really have any deep meaning. It seemed like in any time of suffering, fear, or doubt someone would always say "Oh, you just have to give it to God." Give it to God? How in the world can you give something to God? What does that mean anyways? It just seemed like whenever someone didn't have any actual advice that was what they came up with.

My mother was recently diagnosed with Primary Central Nervous System Lymphoma (PCNSL), which means that cancer has infected her brain causing her to be paralyzed on the left side of her body. Only about 1% of patients with brain tumors have this type of cancer, and most of the patients with PCNSL are HIV+. Mom does not have HIV nor is she old enough to have PCNSL(non-HIV PCNSL patients are typicaly over 60). My mother runs half-marathons and was planning to run the full 26 miles five days after her 50th birthday in November. She watches what she eats. She goes to church. She works hard at the job she has had for 22 years. She has faithfully loved my father since she was 13, and she has raised 3 children. Why? Why did any of this happen? Good person, good health, no cancer, right?

I have never believed that God causes the suffering in this world. God is the clockmaker who lovingly puts all of the gears together to work exactly right. God, then, lets the clock work on its own, but the gears break. I feel like God lets nature run its course. God does not control our lives like we are pawns in a cosmic game of chess, but rather God lets our lives run naturally. When things like the tsunami, Hurricane Katrina, and my mother's cancer happen, they happen. God can then step in and produce something wonderful out of tragedy. We may not always see it, but God does. As a result of the tsunami and Hurricane Katrina, hunderds of thousands of people lost their homes, their families, even their lives. Hundreds of thousands of people also responded to the need, left their homes, and built Sri Lanka and Indonesia and Lousiana and Mississippi back up physically and spiritually. The day my mother was admitted to the hospital, over 5,000 people began to pray for my mother and for my family. 5,000 people. That is amazing.

When the neurosurgeon was finally out of surgery, he told us that there was no hope. Up until that point I had cried and cried and cried. I prayed for strength and courage. No hope? That's what he told us. And, I could not cry. I had not "given it to God;" God took this burden from me. God gave me the strength that my family needed. God gave me the strength to walk out into the waiting room and tell 15 of our closest friends and family that mom needs more prayer than we thought beacuse things were looking bad. I was a rock, a cephas. God made me the Peter of my family - a solid foundation for healing.

We all have banded together - my mother, my family, my friends, and 5,000 people we may or may not even know - and God has brought about a miracle. My mother walked out of the hospital on Monday. Walked. She washed dishes in our kitchen sink on Tuesday, and she continues to heal here on Wednesday. We still have a long and strenuous uphill battle to fight. But with 5,000 people praying, mom cannot help but be a miracle... not to sound too cheesey, right?