Interesting Discussion

I sat across from my colleague and listened carefully to her questions. Is it right to pray for someone to be healed if going through that experience makes them stronger? She made it personal. Look at how many cancer patients I touch, how empathetic I am to their plight, how well I understand their needs because I have been there myself. Would I have been involved with cancer patients if I had not been one? What right does she have to pray that I be delivered from something that is effecting so much good?

I understand where she is coming from, but I wouldn't wish cancer on anyone even if the experience helped a million people. And by her own admission, this is all theological speculation since she has never suffered such things. Still, I have to take her question seriously. Would I care anything at all about the difficulties of cancer patients if I were not one? Probably not.

Does everyone who has cancer reach out to other cancer patients? No. So it isn't exactly the disease that causes the help to flow. More likely it is the experience of God's grace in the situation that allows people to reach out to others. When you are helped, you tend to help.

But why couldn't I just have been given the understanding and empathy for cancer patients without having to experience cancer? After all, work is done with alcoholics by people who are not alcoholics. I don't need to have had a terrible accident with a bicycle to understand the importance of wearing a helmet. Hum. Perhaps these are not good analogies.

For me it is a moot point since I do have cancer and I am concerned about the care of cancer patients. Still, it would be great if I could be healed and continue to work with cancer patients as a well individual. And I will dispel the anxiety right now. Please DO pray that I will be healed. I way prefer to be whole. And I continue to hold out for that hope to be realized.

And if I could go back and choose, I would choose not to have cancer and to believe that God would lead me to do something creative, excellent and of great value that will touch the lives of many through showing loving grace in whatever situation requires it. And maybe that would have been enough to reach cancer patients too.