Why me, God?

This week an old friend was diagnosed with lung cancer. I say 'old' in the sense that I've known him for 22 years, but he's only half a dozen years older than me, which seems less important now than it did then. He preached at our wedding all that time ago, and I even remember his topic: "Don't forget what you've been given". He has been an enormous influence on the lives of many people, including us. Jen and I appreciated the support from him and his wife after Jen was diagnosed, even though they're in another city. They were just about to embark on a new stage, moving north to start a church. You might expect that God would be happy with that, and now this terrible change. It seems natural to ask "Why him, God? Why now?". I don't have an answer that satisfies, and I don't believe anyone else does this side of eternity. I'm just terribly sad for him and his family.

As soon as I heard the news, I was remembering the day of Jen's diagnosis, three and a quarter years ago. Apart from the day Jen died, that was the worst day of the ten months. In a few words and a few minutes, our future together on this earth, our hopes and plans, just crumbled into ruins. You never find out everything at once. There's the initial devastating news, and that first wave of grief in advance. But then there are more scans and tests, more waiting (while at the same time you read up on life expectancy and treatment options), and then (in Jen's case) more bad news. In three weeks we went from thinking 5-10 years might be possible, to seeing 1-2 years as a good outcome. I hope and pray that my friend's case is better - even with serious cancers, a small proportion of people can survive a long time - but I know he'll need a miracle of sorts.

My friend's two youngest children are still at school. I think of my two boys, and how they coped with Jen's treatment, decline and death. Even though I'm left now without Jen, in the 'middle' of my life, I am still gutted and heart-broken for them, because their window of memories of Jen is so short, and they didn't have time to appreciate both the full beauty and the annoying flaws of her character. I hope my friend survives long enough for his children to appreciate more of his wisdom and gentleness, and to be frustrated by his limitations. Even more than for his wife, the grief I feel in advance is for them.

In that initial diagnosis, I felt that life, or perhaps God, had jabbed a finger at us and asked the tough question: what really matters to you? Are your beliefs real or not? Looking back, I'm glad to be able to say that there was an immediate clarity. So many minor worries about money and work faded into the margins. Three things stood out: ultimate trust in God, love for each other and beyond, and hope in a future beyond this life. I'm not pretending that we weren't also assailed by a crowd of questions about cancer and treatment and the future of us without Jen, but we knew what we wanted our priorities to be. I'm confident that my friend too knows what matters to him already, and I hope others will see his integrity, the continuity with what he's stood for all along. I know that he'll value each day much more now, even in the dark valleys of treatment that might be ahead.

With Jen, I too asked, "Why me, God? Why Jen? Why now?". A few months ago, I heard someone, responding to a question on suffering, point out that we only say "Why me, God?" when bad things happen to us. When good things happen we generally take them as our due, perhaps even take them for granted. For some reason we are expecting long, productive lives free of illness. There's a good fraction of the earth's population who would find that expectation rather foreign to their situation. Perhaps instead we should be asking "Why me, God?" when good things happen, which is indeed very often in our society. It's a hard perspective to keep. When I come home tired and grumpy from work to see my sons, I should still try to say "Why me, God? Why is this part of my life so good? Help me appreciate it now." It's not something you need to hear when you're staggering under that first shock, but it helps me now. I don't know "Why him?", but I'm thankful for all the years my friend has been given, and all the good that he's achieved in his family and in the world outside.