“29 years old, and I have an 18 month old kid, a good husband and 3rd stage breast cancer”

“I found out on Thursday and had surgery on Saturday, and then chemo and radiation for months on end.”

“Why me? Was what I demanded of God, will I die, will I see my child grow up? but then I started asking something else—why not me? Why shouldn’t I have cancer, why do I deserve to live?”

“At that moment, the worry, the despair—the fear of death and loss, even, slowly transformed into something else. The reality of God impressed itself on my broken body, and I realized that I never had had control and that I never will, but I know Someone who does and he is faithful and sufficient.”

This is true lightness of being, a remarkable condition that recognizes and affirms the weight of the situation, but yet maintains that higher considerations can effect a brilliant transformation.

On the bus ride home yesterday I sat across from an old man. He had thin bedraggled hair, rather large comical ears, and the smile characteristic of people who haven’t much else besides their humor. He talked sporadically to the woman sitting next to me and took affirmation from her polite nods. I heard his witty comments about sports and regular bus-riders, I heard him apologize to the bus driver for missing the bus the last week or so and describe how he got up at 4:00 in the morning to start his car and I heard him remark about his wife, who he is taking to Branson over Christmas. She has Parkinson’s and has had lots of strokes and lives at a nursing home. “They just need to get out of there sometimes,” he laughed gently—“it can be hard on them at times.”

How do you respond when you don’t have control?