When Life Doesn't Make Sense

(Author's Note:  I came across this devotion recently, which I wrote in 2010.  It brought back some good memories of my friend Alan, who died from the cancer with which he long suffered in December 2011. The questions I asked in this piece are still relevant and the answer, I think, is still the same.  Jim)

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD.  "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55:8-9 NIV)

We are going to be an odd looking pair this morning, my friend and I. As we sit in the booth for breakfast, we are probably going to get some looks.  He had cancer that forced the removal of his left eye and now is again battling an inoperable tumor in the same location that is the size of a small potato.  I, on the other hand, just had surgery yesterday to remove a skin cancer from near the corner of my left eye.  It is swollen and bruised, and has several stitches in it.  We’ll enjoy our breakfasts, but I don’t know if others will.

Alan and I have had a good friendship for a number of years and he has battled these tumors since I’ve known him.  In fact, he has been battling them for the past 15 years.  I was thinking about Alan as I was reclined in the surgeon’s chair yesterday.  I had noticed this little growth about nine months ago and wondered about it, but didn’t think to get it checked out.  But my wife was concerned about some spots on my back and asked me to go have them looked at.  So I did back in November.  Everything checked out okay, except that little spot near the corner of my eye.  It was a basil cell carcinoma, the least severe and most treatable cancer there is.  

So as the doctor is removing this thing, I am lying there thinking about Alan and me.  We both have cancer, but mine will be removed and I’ll be done with it.  He, however, will continue the battle he has been waging for so long.  I endure a half-hour procedure while he has endured countless surgeries, radiation treatments, and chemotherapy.  And, honestly, I don’t get it.   We’re both committed followers of Jesus and we both have been afflicted with cancer; yet he suffers so much and I suffer so little.  He is still waiting for a cure and it looks like mine came yesterday.

I am continually amazed at Alan’s resilient faith and his sense of humor in the midst of all he has endured and continues to endure.  And I still wonder, why him and not me as well?  Why is my cancer so easily and completely removed and his is not?  It doesn’t make sense to me, none at all.

And so, as I’ve had to do at several other points in my life, I come back to these words of the Lord in Isaiah.  He knows, even if I do not.  In my limited understanding, it makes no sense, but the Lord knows and that will have to be enough for me and for Alan.  Though we can’t make sense out of it, we will continue to walk by faith, trusting that God knows and that that is enough.

Today, if something in your life is not making sense, continue to trust in the Lord.  He knows, and sometimes that has to be enough for us.

© Jim Musser  2015