This was written in honor of a cancer survivor who believes that despite his cancer, life is good. If you are a cancer survivor, you can truly relate to what it says.
Life is Good
How can you say that life is good when you have cancer? What’s good about it? You have a disease that threatens your life. You often have pain, discomfort. Your abilities and the control you have over your life keep shrinking, while your schedule of medical visits, tumor markers, and fears keep growing. Your future appears bleaker, your days shorter. There’s just a lot going wrong, it seems. It’s frankly, overwhelming. And a lot of people say some of the most insensitive, unhelpful, hurtful things. But you still say that life is good? How can that be? What is it that you see that still convinces you of life’s goodness, joy, wonder, beauty? You’ve been through the wringer. Your life has changed and it can never go back to what it once was. But that is your answer. It can’t go back and you don’t want it to. In spite of and because of your cancer it can’t go back. That’s your answer! You have learned in spite of your cancer that God is stronger than the cancer is, that you are stronger than the cancer too. You have learned because of your cancer that the fragility of life makes life that much more special, precious, worth living fully. You have learned to love more deeply, forgive more quickly, laugh more freely, risk more boldly. You have learned, it seems, to search more seriously for God’s face and in your search, you see God’s face in so many more places than you ever had before. You really do see life as good, because life is meant to be good and when you found that truth you decided to begin to live it, to be fully alive, to be free.
Copyright © 2009 by Michael Gingerich. All rights reserved.
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