Mercy Me,
When Cancer Brings Us Forgiveness
Addendum: I wrote this August 16, 2019, right before my mother's funeral in my previous Blog: The Woman at the Well. I've since recycled and revised it for the second time after finally watching the movie, "I Can Only Imagine," the story of Bart Millard's song which chronicles his tenuous relationship with his abusive father.
Almost five years ago, I buried my mother with my five siblings and yet, I was the only one not crying. It was an unexpected death, not sudden, but surely unexpected. Cancer came in and humbled my mom, because sometimes, that is how GOD has to do it. People say that GOD never sends cancer, well, I happen to disagree. The Bible is clear that GOD sends calamity.
I form light, I create darkness; I make well-being, I create woe; I, Adonai, do all these things.
(Isaiah 45:7 The Complete Jewish Bible.)
Maybe it is not done by His hand specifically, but He is ultimately Sovereign, and nothing comes by us or to us without His prior knowledge and permission. We read in the first chapter of Job that GOD was bragging on his faithful servant, Job, when the devil approached GOD and accused him of being faithful only because he had everything served to him on a silver platter, to quote a contemporary colloquialism. GOD let Satan stricken Job taking everything away from him, children, livestock, servants, and all his earthly goods. When Job did not curse GOD, the devil had something else up his sleeve, PAIN! It's one thing to lose all our earthly goods, it's a whole new ball game when physical pain and discomfort torture us, wearing us out. Again, Satan had to seek permission from GOD, and it was granted, however the devil was to spare Job's life. (Hence, the devil has power to take life, according to this Scripture. Remember that little point!) The devil has to seek permission for everything he does, so the devil gets the blame, but GOD gets the glory in it, if we let Him. (Romans 8:28) The devil hit Job with everything he had, and yet, the Bible says that Job did not curse GOD. He may not have cursed GOD, but he surely did complained and blame GOD. He also sinned with his own self-justification, as I wrote in my book The Wrath of Job: In His Own Words My mother's cancer came like that, out of nowhere, unexpected, unannounced, and unheard of, as cancer was not in our family history. Cancer runs in families, right? If no one in your family or line of ancestors had cancer, well, then you were going to dodge that bullet, or so we used to like to think. How wrong we are, especially these post-jab days. I was the first in my family to contract it, five years prior to my mother's. It was a rare form, parotid cancer. Only one in every 500,000 women, my age contract this kind of cancer. This I knew was from GOD, because I sort of got a heads-up on it. I believed that the Holy Spirit warned me two years ahead of time that cancer was coming to humble me and keep me humble. Again, I wrote about this ordeal in an earlier blog. Cancer, Death, and Humble Pie, Among Others . My cancer was stage one, so it was easily defeated with seven weeks of radiation hell. It was seven months of suffering for me, but it did the trick. It drew me closer to GOD. It taught me more of Who He is and His grace being sufficient in my weakness. Now, I'm a "ticking" time-bomb with all the radiation I did receive, thus perpetually feeding me humble pie for the rest of my days here on this planet. My mom's cancer was quite a bit different. It had an appetite for her body that was ravenous, and it fed on her like a famished lion. In less than sixteen weeks, my mom was gone. This cancer was brutal, tumors grew like wildfire and burned like it also. My mom suffered terribly. I learned that it is just as hard to watch one's parent suffer as it is one's child. As would any child, I rushed home from one thousand miles away to be with my mother in her worst hour of suffering, and to be with her and my siblings as she exited this world and entered the next. I thought I received a sign from GOD that He had her up there in heaven, and all was well, because a minute after she breathed her last, John 3:16 popped up as the first tweet in my Twitter feed. There was one other thing that I believed was from GOD, and that was what I was reading the last few moments of her life, when she was breathing her last few moments of life here on earth. I was reading 2 Chronicles 33 about King Manasseh entreaty before GOD and how He had pity on the formerly evil King. He was reputed as having flooded the streets of Jerusalem of innocent blood, but when evil befell him, he fell before his GOD in heaven, seeking mercy. Both 2 Kings and 2 Chronicles speak of just how evil was the son of the good king, Hezekiah, but only 2 Chronicles tells of Manasseh's repentance. When God wants to humble a person, He knows just what it will take, and a hook in Manasseh's nose and bronze fetters on his feet did the trick. Now, we humans would have said, "tough cookies, bud, you deserve this." Aren't we glad that we are not GOD and GOD is not us, that we don't think like GOD and GOD doesn't think like us? (Isaiah 55:8-9). One small act of humbling himself before the YHVH GOD. A sincere act of repentance (a change of heart), and GOD restored the evil king, who was immediately transposed into a good king. He proved his repentance was genuine as he went about restoring Jerusalem, the Temple, removing the wooden idols, and demanding that the people worship only GOD. It's an amazing story of just how big and wide is the Grace of GOD with one simple, sincere act of humiliation before him.
As I mentioned, I was reading these verses just as my mom took her last breath, and that is no coincidence. I truly believe that GOD wanted me to know that all the sharp words my mom used were thrown in the deepest part of the ocean, gone forever, and not held against her. Let me tell you, she had a tongue sharper than any finely tuned razor blade. She could chop a person to pieces with it with no effort at all on her part, and in no time flat. She wasn't just a Italian Yankee firecracker, she was a nuclear explosion when her fuse was lit. The day after she died, I happened to stumble upon some of her emails she wrote to my siblings about me and my children. After reading about twenty of them, I had seen more than my eyes should have ever seen. There is no question in my mind why my siblings hated me so much after reading what she said about me to them. Mom was the fuel that fed that fire of fury. She had said the most dreadfully horrible things about me and my children that no decent relative should say about another, let alone a mother about her own child and grandchildren. I had no idea that who I thought was my supportive mother was not only not so supportive, but she had hoped to see me fail. According to these emails, she hated me and even went as far as to take my ex-husband's side when he abandoned me. Maybe she even got some pleasure from it. I will never understand this, but here is where that BIG huge Grace of GOD comes into play. My mom's heart was like every human heart, deceptively evil, hard to even fathom (Jeremiah 17:9). GOD, knowing that her time was coming soon, instead of letting her evil heart drag her into hell, he gave her an opportunity to be so afflicted that her only option and hope would be to call out to GOD, as did King Manasseh. The Bible says in several places, "Whoever calls on the name of the LORD will be saved," and I heard many times during that brief time of severe suffering, her calling on the name of Jesus for relief and mercy.
In the movie, Bart got a few last months to have a restored relationship with his earthly father, and it changed his whole perspective on forgiveness. GOD gave Bart time to forgive and love his earthly father. I never got a chance like Bart to have the wonderful end of life relationship with my mother, but, soon, I will have all of eternity to do it with, and I'm so looking forward to that day, I can only imagine how wonderful it will be. I could hold a grudge against my mother, but what purpose would that serve? My tongue is just as sharp as hers, and I've ripped a few people apart in my day, even in recent days, when my fuse was lit. It's a terrible sin, but it's the human condition. We let our emotions dictate our words and actions when under a great deal of stress or distress. My mom didn't get a chance to apologize to me, but GOD let me see just how He works in forcing an apology, even a silent one out of one's heart on their deathbed. I could hate that woman for the damage she had done to me all my growing up years, and there is still plenty of damage left over, but she is not that woman anymore. She is a new creation, a whole person, loving, happy and pleasant in Glory. I never saw my mother pleasant and happy. I can't wait to meet the woman she is now, and I will have the chance, sooner rather than later. Sin is sin, whether we fall into it, or commit it with malice-a-forethought, and we are in need of forgiveness from GOD for every sin, past, present and future. Here is where GOD looks at the righteousness of Jesus and his work on the cross, and not the decades worth of sin that we either fall into, or plot in vain. Grace is not a license to sin, but in the end, if we do take that license to sin, in the end, GOD knows our true hearts, even if we hide it from the world. Maybe I'm wrong, but I see this suffering as a gift from GOD. He will use it to bring us closer to Him either in this life or the next. I would like to believe that He took pity on me and my mom and taught us both a very valuable lesson in how GOD not only humbles us in our sin, but by doing that, He wipes away 87 years of evil behavior in one instant, and that proves to us just how BIG and WIDE is His grace and mercy.
