Miracles

I have just had a real tough month, as I was the recipient of what could have been really bad news about my Anne, i.e. cancer and my dad had Pneumonia and spent a week plus in the hospital. I had been given a book recently released by Anne’s cousin, Tim Stafford, on the topic of Miracles. As I reflect on cousin Tim’s ponderings about how does God work in today’s world I was also struck by a movie Anne selected to watch last night about a totally wild blonde 20 something whose life has a twist – cancer, that forces her to become real to her parents, best friends and a doctor trying to help her.

It has been more than 15 years since my parents made the trek from San Diego to visit Anne and I with some special news. I will always remember sitting in the back patio, which I had just finished with flagstone next to my large koi pond. My mom is one to mince with words so it was rather quick that she shared that she had seen her doctor and recently discovered that she had breast cancer and would have a mastectomy soon. She explained that her and dad were hesitant to tell us anything because they didn’t want us to worry. I was both taken back by the C word but more so by their slowness to tell us what was really happening. After the news was broken we enjoyed their weekend visit with us.

I had little sense that after my mom’s surgery that any else was really going to happen. Her doctor had given her a supposed clean bill of health. He seemed to say that she was more than just in remission but was going to be fine. Life went back to a normal busy and emotionally I tucked away the fact that my mom had cancer and could still die from it. It was a few years later that I discover that she is taking some meds that are supposed to help her tumor markers stay low.

As my parents make a decision that mom will do chemotherapy I didn’t make any effort to meet the Oncologist and talk with him. It wasn’t until a few years later and my mom has gone from curly gray hair to little hair and a significant weight loss that I decide to meet the doctor and find out first hand what is the prognosis. My mom had already formed a real attachment to this doctor so my ability to persuade her to pursue alternative treatment failed. I ended up having to argue with both my parents about mom’s true situation, which wasn’t good but rather bleak.

As an aside yes we had been praying seriously for my mom hoping that God would supernaturally intervene and heal her. We had experienced God’s hand in our lives with the yearlong birth of our daughter, Heather. As I have been reading Tim’s book it continues to help me see the broader perspective of how God works. It is too easy either to blame God for doing something rather horrible or blame myself for not praying more or being more spiritual. The book, Miracles, has helped me better understand that I can’t control God like a puppet, assume that my mom’s situation was a byproduct of her sin or mine but a life experience that God wanted us to experience.

I spent the next year visiting my mom during her doctor appointments. I become a friend of her Oncologist. I would send him e-mails with a list of questions each month. This gave me an opportunity to vocalize my frustration with only doing chemo and not anything else. My brother was in the process of graduating from UCSB with his PhD while this was going on. The challenge for my mom was that her chemo had made her unable to travel and do much besides be close to a bathroom 24/7. I had a heart to heart talk with her and my dad and they came to the conclusion that it would be best for her to stop her treatment which wasn’t helping and be able to see her son walk with his cap and gown.

After this special celebration my mom decided to stop her treatment. I know that it was only a matter of months before I would receive the call from my dad that she was gone. I was prepared for this and also not prepared for this. My life has never been the same since my mom left this life for a better life with her God. My dad during this period of time had been experiencing the onslaught of Dementia, which now is very serious.

My mother died on a Thursday early morning just a month after our shared birthdays. As my wife shared with me while we were in bed that she had to have surgery and a biopsy to determine whether she had Ovarian Cancer I was overwhelmed. God, why, what or whatever or……… is happening. I have already lost my mom to cancer, my dad is never going to be the same person and now the person who is most important in my life could have a year to live.

So as I am reading this book on Miracles and now watching what I thought was a totally non-sensical movie I am being ripped inside as I see this wacky blonde discover that she has incurable cancer. Her life, which was pretty crazy before now takes a totally different focus. She initially doesn’t want to tell anyone about what is happening, yet, after a while you can’t hide the impact of chemo, loosing weight and not being a work. I do believe in a God who is all-powerful, all merciful and all loving. Yet, I feel like this girl whose mom and dad don’t know how to handle the news, their daughter is going to die.

I only had a week to panic and pray as Anne shared the news. We would face surgery just a week after her initial doctor’s visit. I have previously shared about how we had all of our kids and their spouses meet with us at a resort hotel. This was very sobering evening where everyone had tears and the hope that mom would be ok. Yet, the early morning of the surgery didn’t give me that complete assurance. Yes, as we read and reread Scripture we know that God is faithful and won’t give us more than we can handle. Yet, I’m complaining loudly that I had already been given too much with my mom’s death and now my dad’s memory loss and Parkinson.

As the movie slowly draws to an end with Marley changing from being totally withdrawn to now wanting to embrace her wayward father and her too clingy mother she realizes that her new love, her doctor, needs to hear that she does love him much as her life long friends she has ditched need to hear her reaffirm her friendship. At this point I am bawling my eyes out as I realize that could have been me not knowing what to do with my Anne being really sick. I don’t think I would be a very pleasant person to sit by and watch someone die. I would want to go out and experience life as if there wasn’t an end and the sun would never rise again.

The reality is that the movie finishes with an amazing celebration of Marley’s life with all of her friends and dog present. All of a sudden the fight amongst Pentecostals, Neo-Pentecostals and Anti-Pentecostals doesn’t make any sense to me at all. What good is it to argue against God or others about something, which we have little control over ultimately?  I know that it is easy to either be one who believes that miracles happen all of the time regardless of whether they seem real or not or whether we have become too cynical about miracles because those who dispense them have become performers and not real people.

As the movie finished my Anne came over to me and I seriously lost it and burst into tears. I shared with her how I was so afraid that this movie could have been about her. I know that my dad isn’t going to get better but that his journey will slowly go down hill. The one thing I know both from the movie and also more so from Scripture is that God is there regardless of the circumstances. I loved what Tim had to say about Miracles in the end, yes God is still doing amazing things and the reality is that most of us have seen at least one miracle happen in our lives. The question is whether I’m able to see the miracle and gift of life through the door of death.