It's been at least 20 years since I've seen her. That girl that I knew is ravaged. But she knew me as I knew her, and all the things that tie us together came flooding back. As I looked at her slumped over, unable to form any words at all, or control how she moved, and I as watched her slide down in the couch unable to change the course of her movements, I wondered at God's plan and timing. I was seeing my cousin in the ending stages of cancer, in those now unfightable stages, I thought that it's no wonder we get it all wrong. Why we wonder at "how in the world could this happen." Crying quietly with the poor guy that's taking care of her who is already beside himself with grief, saying "it's just not right". Any platitude I could offer would seem dull and empty except that I know we see it all wrong. God didn't abandon us to the horror of what sin does, instead He rescued us. He provided the way even though the dreadfulness of cancer still comes upon us. He wasn't even caught off guard by all of this. He knew it before we exsisted. That incredible gift of Jesus has to be explained. We have to look at all this from a different perspective. I must. I can't leave them with this pain that seems so unbearable.
What could I do? My hands can't heal her, but they could hold her. I had to tell her that she wasn't forgotten or forsaken:
He does not deal with us according to our sins, nor repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father shows compassion to his children, so the LORD shows compassion to those who fear him.For he knows our frame; he remembers that we are dust.
As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field; for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more. But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him.
The thing is, I can't tell you how uncomfortable jus the thought of making this trip had made me. When my brother called to propose going, I told him I was thinking of sending a card, or at the most, making a phone call. Not a visit. That's just too uncomfortable. He didn't let me worm out of it, only because I'd sensed God speaking to me earlier about sacrifices. But as soon as I stepped through the door I knew that the decision to go and see what I could do was the right one. I never stopped being uncomfortable, but that was OK. More than anything, I need to learn to be comfortable with that uncomfortableness. May He lead me this direction more often.
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