Cancer sucks.
There really is not a more eloquent way of saying it. No matter who you are, when someone you love gets that dreaded diagnosis, the feelings that follow are pain, anger and fear. I watched as a beautiful and godly woman was ravaged by cancer. The cancer took her strength, her mobility, and ultimately her life last Wednesday night, but it could not take her joy, her love for her family and her great love for her Savior.
Death is scary. As humans, we have a fear of the unknown, and to be honest, death is the greatest unknown. There are so many theories about what happens to us when we die. Some people believe that we just end - we fade into nothingness just as we were before we were born. Some people we will be reborn onto this earth as someone - or something - different. And there are those of us who believe that there is life after death - just not life on earth.
I fall into the last category. With all of my heart, I believe in a Heaven and a hell. I believe there is an all Supreme God who created everything. I believe He is manifested in three persons - God the Father, God the Son (Jesus), and God the Holy Spirit. I believe He sent His Son - Jesus Christ - to live on this earth for 33 years - fully God yet fully man. I believe Jesus felt the same pressures and temptations we feel. I believe that at the end of His ministry, He was crucified by the same people He came to save. I believe He died a real death and was buried in a real tomb. I believe that after three days, His disciples found His tomb empty because He had risen again. And I believe that someday - we do not know when but someday - He will return for us.
Death doesn't have to be scary. For my dear friend who succumbed to cancer, death was not scary. She knew exactly where she would be going when she breathed her last. In the blink of an eye, her earthly heart stopped and in that same moment, she took the hand of her Savior. In that moment, she left the cancer and pain behind. In that moment, she entered the presence of God. She was embraced by the One who loves her much more than any of us ever could.
I'm not going to lie. It was really hard to watch her suffer. I prayed every day that God would heal her. It did hurt to find out that God did not answer my prayers the way I had so wanted. But to question God's will is to question something I cannot understand. There are simply some things that are unknowable. The mind of God is one of them. There are many things I do not understand - why do people suffer? Why do children starve? Why do mothers and fathers lose their children to cancer? Why do some people live and some people die? Maybe someday I will get the answers to these questions. But for now, it is for me to trust and trust alone.
Trusting is not easy. I spend every day fighting voices of doubt in my head. But deep down inside my very being, I know the truth. I know that God is who He says He is. I sometimes can't explain that feeling. I just feel it with the utmost surety. That feeling drives me on. That belief is what keeps me going. That is how I fight the doubt.
There are many things in life that frighten people, but death doesn't have to be one of them. To know and love Christ, to accept that you are fallen and flawed and to put your entire life into the hands of God is to banish death and the fear it causes. The following verses from 1 Corinthians 15:54b-55 sum up the reality of death for Christians:
"Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?"
Jesus crushed the power of death the moment He drew His last breath on that wretched cross. He tore the veil that separated us from the Father. Suddenly, in that moment, we were able to go straight to God without needing a sacrifice or a priest. That was the moment that connected us to God and gave us the right to enter Heaven as heirs.
Unfortunately, this promise is not for all. To enter Heaven and spend eternity with God is a free gift for everyone - yet many people will not accept due to doubt, fear, or outright disbelief. I will come right out and say that hell is a very real place. It's not the party that some believe it will be. It is immense and unspeakable pain and torture for eternity. But you do not have to go there.
Most people will call me a fool and say that what I speak and believe is nonsense. Okay. Suit yourself. But you owe it to yourself to truly understand and figure out why you do not believe. If I am wrong, nothing comes of it. If, when we die, we simply become nothing, then my life believing in God is nothing as well. There are no consequences. But if I am right, then everything changes. If I am right and Heaven and hell are real places, then there will be a lot of people who will regret their choices during life. It kills me to know that some people will spend eternity in misery simply because they didn't want to believe.
For my friend, death was not the end. Death was the beginning of a brand new adventure. Death brought her more peace, joy and happiness than this life ever did. And I relish in the thought that I will see her again. I will see both of my grandpas again. I will see every single believe that has gone on before me. And forever we will worship the King who created us all. I can think of no better way to spend forever.
