God and Cancer....

I have spent a lot of time on the internet since Kyle's diagnosis.

A lot.  A lot.

Searching.  Researching.  Studying.  Reading.  Thinking.

I have found blog after blog of people effected with 
cancer, this cancer and other kinds of cancers.

It's so very interesting to me to read so many variations
on the same theme.

So many religions, and no religions, and how it all plays
in to what people think about this disease.

Some people think God gave them cancer.

Some people KNOW He did.

Some people think the Devil gave them cancer.

Some people know He did.

Some people think cancer just happened because we live in
a fallen world with mortal bodies, and sometimes bad things
JUST happen to us.

Some people find great comfort in hope and faith and God.

Some people rage at the sky against Him. 

Some people think if they loose faith, the devil will
make their cancer worse, and then they will die.

Some people hold out hope against hope that if they 
have enough faith and prayers God will step in and cure
terminal cancer.

It only takes enough.

Hope, and faith, and prayers.

I have been a veritable see saw of emotion, and thought,
and feeling on this journey thus far.

NO ONE is right or wrong with how they deal with this,
and view it.  Everyone is right.  Everyone HAS the right
to believe what feels right to them.

There only rules in this "game"?

Well, is that there are NO RULES!

We are all speaking the faith languages most familiar to each 
of us.

I listened to a podcast this week about cancer, and dying.

The storyteller spoke of how cancer rocked her beliefs in God
to the very core of who she thought she was, and what she 
believed.

It changed her entire paradigm of an "intervening" God into a 
God of comfort.  One who cannot reach in and "fix", but
rather comforts us during these hard times. (Much like 
Rabbi Kushner feels.  MORE press for the Rabbi!)

I felt a great kinship with her thought process.

I know Kyle feels this way as well.

We have started attending a "support group" with weekly
meetings.

To talk about cancer and life and our feelings with other
cancer patients.

A few weeks back the discussion centered around cancer and God
and how this ton of bricks (cancer) can greatly impact our faith.

I was telling the story of how in our religion we believe in 
a God that can find lost car keys, and how I have a hard time
with a God that helps someone find their lost keys, but cannot
reach in and cure this disease.

Seriously?  Are lost keys more important than healing the sick?

That just blows my little mortal mind.

(I know everyone has a different spin on why this happens
and how this is....I'm just giving you MY spin for today.)

Are the proverbial "lost keys" more important than....

...female genital mutilation in Africa on millions of
little girls everyday?  Why doesn't God help them?

Or more important than the tens of thousands of little children being sold into sex slavery at the ages of 6, or 8 all over the world?  Where is God then?

My list goes on and on.  I am curious why God (seemingly)
chooses (those figurative) lost car keys over the millions of other great sufferings in our world that happen everyday.

Why does God pick and chooses favorites to save and cure? 
(again, seemingly)

Those He will help.

Or those He will not help.

Why are some people more worthy and deserving of His help
and healing?  And not others?

Is it lack of faith?  Does he not see, or care, or hear the 
billions of prayers from those children crying for relief in 
Africa.  Or is there just "some lesson" they need to be learning?

Maybe God cannot reach in like we like to think He can.

Maybe He's bound by the laws of this earth, and universe He
created.

Maybe he cannot change the inevitable.

Maybe sometimes He just has to sit back and watch.

As a natural disaster unfolds.

Or the cancer becomes terminal.

Or the child cries for relief in a foreign country.

Maybe.

Maybe. I don't know.

Or maybe He can help heal us, or find lost keys.

(I'm just asking the questions....I don't have the answers).

I know people say we just don't always understand HIS "will."

And people can believe anything they want to, they have that right.

I'm just not sure how I feel about all of this right now.

Please don't judge me for how I feel.

Remember this is our journey, and we are entitled to feel anyway
we want to.

I'm putting it all on the line.

How I feel.  Very publicly.   

We also have the right to change our minds.

At any given point along our journey.

Here's what I have learned so far along the way though.

1.  Goodness and kindness and acts of love toward my family
    are NOT limited to people of my faith and religion.  We do
    not have the sole ownership of goodness in this world.  Not
    by a long shot!

2.  Somehow, someway, we are all connected in this great world
    and can receive and act on "inspiration". (this is my faith
    language--you can call it whatever you want in your faith
    language).  Whether we are Mormon, Catholic, Baptist,     
    Atheist, Buddhist, or Agnostic.  We have received kindness
    and goodness and acts of love and service from ALL of
    the above!  Friends and strangers alike reaching out to us.
    From all over this country.  Something prompts them to reach,
    and they do.  In love.  With love.  (Don't we say "God is 
    Love?", if so aren't they acting in His name?)

3.  I don't know how much God actually changes the natural 
    outcome of things in this world, regardless of ALL of our
    collective faith and prayers and hopes.  But I do believe
    that we can ABSOLUTELY feel (tangibly) the energy and prayers
    and goodness from others coming our way. We have felt it. 
    Without question. It holds us up when all else fails.


4.  I've learned I don't really KNOW anything.  I have lots of
    hope and faith.  and I hope that it is enough to get me
    through. 

Maybe the Devil made me write this post.  

Or maybe God did.

Maybe I don't have enough faith.

Or MAYBE I just JUST enough.

That's what I've got for today.

What do YOU think?