Anders, Dan

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LeavenVolume 3Issue 1 Galatians Article 91-1-1995When the Doctor Says "Cancer": Reflections onthe Journey of SufferingDan AndersFollow this and additional works at: http://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/leavenPart of the Biblical Studies Commons, Christianity Commons, and the Religious Thought,Theology and Philosophy of Religion CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Religion at Pepperdine Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Leaven byan authorized administrator of Pepperdine Digital Commons. For more information, please contact Kevin.Miller3@pepperdine.edu.Recommended CitationAnders, Dan (1995) "When the Doctor Says "Cancer": Reflections on the Journey of Suffering," Leaven: Vol. 3: Iss. 1, Article 9.Available at: http://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/leaven/vol3/iss1/932 Leaven,vol.3, #1When The Doctor Says66 ~ ffiJ,ill~® no 99Reflections on theJourney of SufferingbyDan AndersSome dates and words are forever etched inmemory. March 15, 1989, and "cancer" are unforget-table to me. I sat in my family doctor's officelate thatWednesday afternoon and heard the word "cancer"spoken of me for the first time.I had tried to make this journey ofsuffering withothers many times. For sixteen years in Houston Imade regular trips to M. D. Anderson Hospital tominister to cancer patients. I had buried the belovedmates oftwo elders from the disease. I baptized, thenburied a twenty-something man, a victim of malig-nancy. I had visited children tooyoung tounderstand,and folks too old to care.But this trip was to be different. It uniquely wasmine. This was my personal journey with pain.The Journey BeginsOver the next five months I traveled throughuncomfortable-to-hideous medical tests, major sur-gery to biopsy the almost football-sized lymphomagrowing in my abdomen, thirteen weeks ofintensivechemotherapy and twenty-five days of radiationtreatments. Finally, praise God, CT-scans showedthat the monster had been whipped. I was "inremission" from the dread disease!Then, unbelievably, three years later much ofthetrip had to be taken again. Alymphoma was growingin a salivary gland, just in front of my right ear.Another operation, by a skilled plastic surgeon,followedby a year ofonce-a-month chemo. And againthe wondrous words "You are disease-free!" after aCT-scan.My journey is not over. My oncologist recom-mends that I have periodic chemotherapy "as long asnecessary" in hopes of preventing another growth ofcancer in my obviously defective lymph system.Over the past five years I have had existentialreason to reflect, more than I ever wanted to, ontraveling with pain. Mythoughts have been usuallyspasmodic, some times regular; mostly alone, occa-sionally shared; probably superficial, rarely profound.With all their personal quirks, with all their borrowedinsights, with all their limitations, but with hopedhelpfulness, I share them.When Pain ComesWhether we ever understand it or not we alllearn one truth: troubles come! Suffering is auniversal given. Pain is a fact oflife. Soonor late, weall make some trip with discomfort, disease anddying. Philosophers and theologians learnedly call it"The Problem ofEvil." We learn simply that suffer-ing is pervasive and personal.We need to learn early that some pain is naturalto life. We cannot come into this world without pain.Ask any mother about giving birth! And, in spite ofour fantasies about an easy old-age and a disease-free death, few of us, if any, exit life without some1Anders: When the Doctor Says "Cancer": Reflections on the Journey of SuffPublished by Pepperdine Digital Commons, 1995suffering. Pain happens. It is part ofliving.Somepain is brought onby evil actions. Read anydaily newspaper. Watch tonight's news. The worldis filled with the hideous cries of sufferers tormentedby the deeds ofothers. Whether today's hot spot wasRwanda or Serbia or Chernobyl or Buenos Aires orLosAngeles, there is enough human-evil-caused painin every day's news to teach us that it is Everyone'sstory.Other pain is irrational and absurd. Strain ourbrain as we may, there is no recognizable reason forsome ofour suffering. Between my cancer trips, I hadan equally unwanted appendectomy. Why? Nodoctor can explain what causes an irrational attackofappendicitis! It is a mystery. But I can testify thatit does happen.Forrest Gump, at the start of that sterling film,offers awoman a chocolate from his boxofcandy. "MyMomma always said," he relates in his retardedspeech, "that life is like a boxofchawklits. You neverknow what you're gonna get." Indeed so.The Witness of ScriptureGod'sword certainly is not silent on the subject ofsuffering. I have made no effort to count the cries ofpain in Scripture. It would be a long, major study.The laments from pain echorepeatedly in the Bible'spages.You can't scratch the Bible very deeply withouthearing the cry of pain. The third page in my Bibleintroduces suffering. The next-to-the-last promisesits eradication. And in between those brackets thereis an almost unrelenting lament of troubles. Asalways, the Bible is utterly realistic about life.In the Psalter alone, psalm after psalm shoutsangrily or pathetically or questioningly to God aboutour human veil of tears. Personal and corporatelaments are, indeed, the most frequent genre ofpoetry in the Psalms.Try this simple study, suggested by E. StanleyJones in his book Christ and Human Suffering.Take Luke 21:7-19. Read it from a perspective oftroubles that will come to humankind. List as manypotential sources of suffering as you find. They willrange from wrong religious teachings, to economicdistress, to natural disaster, to family strife. Andyou will find several more possible causes of ourtroubles! This is just one small example of howseriously the Bible takes the reality of pain in ourworld.Frommyownreflection, Ibelieve the Bibleaffirmsthree mega-truths about suffering. For one thing,pain was not in God's original design. There is noallusion to suffering in the Creation accounts. Painis absent from God's creative activity in the first twoGalatians 33chapters of Genesis. God made a perfect world,without evil of any kind.Also, pain in general is a result ofThe Fall. Readagain the dramatic words of Genesis 3:16-19, God'scurse on humankind because of self-chosen rebellionagainst our Creator. Notice how many referencesthere are to pain and suffering. Since pain was not atthe Beginning and pain will not be at the End, I canonly conclude that the primacy of earthly pain is aconsequence of that original human sin.But, not all pain is a direct result ofpersonal sin.It is a common human error to conclude that everysufferer suffers forher or his ownwrongdoing. As oldas the Book ofJob, people believed that all pain waspunishment for one's own misdeeds.The first speech by Eliphaz slings arrows ofdoubts at Job's integrity (Job 4:7-21). And the lastspeech by Bildad harps on that same bad note (Job25:1-6). Throughout the book, Job consistently - Ithink, correctly - argues that he is not guilty of sin.His suffering was not a punishment (cf. Job 31).There is much innocent suffering.If one flawless proofis needed, lookonly at Jesus.We know that our Lord "was tested by what hesuffered .... " (Heb 2:18 NRSV). And we furtherbelieve that in him "wehave onewho in every respecthas been tested as we are, yet without sin" (Heb 4:15).WhyBad Things Don't HappenOther wrong explanations besides "suffering aspunishment" have been proposed. George Buttrickdiscusses several in his God, Pain, and Evil.Some reason that pain is good in itself. Inextreme, perverted forms people inflict pain on them-selves (masochism) or on others (sadism) to getpleasure-even sexual satisfaction. Buttrick arguesthat this view "Is life unhealthily turned in on itself.""Pain of itself," he writes, "is not good. On thecontrary, it is incipient death ... all pain of itself isultimately fatal."Others assert that pain has no real existence.The philosophical background of this rationale issolipsism, the belief that self is the only reality.There are patent flaws in this concept. If there isnothing real outside your solitary self, then there canbe no pain or joy from outside yourself. The sheerstupidity of a firm solipsism is laughable: no otherpersons! no Yosemite Valley! no ocean surf no God!-just mewith myown self-created cosmosofinnerreality.Many people believe that present pain comesfrom our sin in a prior incarnation. The world'sHindus, and many new age reincarnationists, holdthis view. There is some merit. Pain does come inpart from the past.2Leaven, Vol. 3 [1995], Iss. 1, Art. 9http://digitalcommons.pepperdine.edu/leaven/vol3/iss1/934 Leaven, vol. 3, #1On the simplest level, we inherit bad thingswilly-nilly from our ancestors: a crooked toenail,arteries that collect plaque, normal cells that turnmalignant.We also inherit a huge load of sin baggage thatburdens us with racial prejudice, national hatreds,ethnic stereotypes, and other damaging attitudesthat pollute human life.Still, in spite ofHindu philosophy or the new-agebabblings, there is no empirical proof that anyonehas more than one human lifetime. For most of us,the Bible's dictum is goodenough: "... it is appointedformortals to die once, and after that the judgment"(Heb 9:27).Others hold that all suffering is a consequence ofour human desires. Buddhism holds that desire isthe root of all evil. Only meditation on the Buddha'sNobleFour-Fold Path can eradicate human ambition,striving and thus suffering.It is true that much human pain comes fromwrong desire or unfulfilled expectations. "Thoseconflicts and disputes among you... comefrom yourcravings that are at war within you" (James 4:1, 2).But Buddhist philosophy self-destructs on twobig facts: our basic desires are God-given, and desireis a permanent human reality. Not even the mostdevout, saffroned mendicant monk fully escapes de-SIre.Others believe that in some sense all suffering isGod's will. This is a major biblical heresy. Piousbelievers have tried from earliest times to comfortthemselves or others by affirming of some hideoushorror, "This is the will of God."I think it is a major non sequitur tojump from allsuffering to the divine purpose. To say that Godwillsall pain makes him a monster, in myjudgment. JohnWesley bluntly said that a Godwho makes innocentbabies suffer "is my Devil."Myownview is that if it helps you personallyto believe that God's plan lies back ofyour troubles,God bless you. But please don't inflict that bromideon any other sufferer! You probably will only addmore torment to their pain.When the Thorn StaysOne of the thorniest problems, then, that weChristians must confront is why Goddoesnot removeall the troubles of the faithful who beg him to act.Make no mistake, God repeatedly promised togive his children the things for which they ask.Matthew 7:7-11would be text enough. But there aremany others (e.g., Matt 18:19;Mark 11:24).It is an equally plain truth that we are not givenall that for which we ask! Jesus was not spared thecross, in spite ofhis "prayers and supplications, withloud cries and tears" (Heb 5:7). God did not pullPaul's fleshly thorn (2 Cor 12:7-9a). Why?Perhaps we are left, in some sense, to fall back onthe will of God. Some have found Leslie D.Weatherhead's discussion on The Will of God to behelpful. This British minister tried to distinguishbetween God's "purposed will" - good, redemption,love, salvation - and God's "permissive will" -disease, suffering, death. So, God "purposes" healthfor us, but he "permits" disease. Maybe, inWeatherhead's sense, we could affirm with Job that"no purpose [ofGod] can be thwarted" (Job 42:2).It must be said, I think, all-too-briefly for now,that howwedeal with our troubles is more importantthan the why. Wemay never determine the reasons.But we certainly can learn from great sufferers thebest ways to respond to our inevitable, incurablepains.At the end of the exceptional movie,"Shadowlands," a grieving C. S. Lewis mourns theloss of his wife, Joy, from bone cancer. He reflectsthat, instead ofchoosing to insulate himself from hisown sorrow, "I choose suffering. Pain now is a partof happiness then."Perhaps, till the end of our painful journey, weare left with Mystery. With unanswerable questions.With no alternative but trusting God. Then we cansay with Job, "I had heard of you by the hearing ofthe ear, but nowmy eye sees you; therefore I despisemyself, and repent in dust and ashes" (Job 42:5, 6).That, after all, is our rightful human place.Prostrate, in the dust, before our God. Only then canhe lift us up.Additional helpful readingC. S. Lewis,The Problem of PainPaul Tournier, Creative SufferingLeslie D.Weatherhead, Salute to a SuffererNicholas Wolterstorf, Lament for A SonPhilip Yancey, Disappointment with God___ ,Where Is God When It Hurts?Dan Anders is preaching minister of MalibuChurch of Christ, Malibu, California.3Anders: When the Doctor Says "Cancer": Reflections on the Journey of SuffPublished by Pepperdine Digital Commons, 1995

When the Doctor Says  Cancer : Reflections on the Journey of Suffering

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When the Doctor Says Cancer : Reflections on the Journey of Suffering

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