There has always been a thunder-cloud above my head. A shadow, a threat. The cloud followed me from Canada to Japan – through immigration and a fiancée visa to America. The cloud floated about the moving van when we moved from California to Pennsylvania. A storm cloud of family genetics waiting to rain on my life. Uncles, aunts, grandparents, cousins, parents, my brother, all touched by cancer.
I didn’t wait passively. I played defense. I attempted to catch the invaders when they landed, before they had a chance to advance and replicate. I read articles on the Mayo Clinic web-site about breast cancer prevention. I exercised because my chances of breast cancer decreased if I did. I looked at pictures of moles to be able to recognize the enemy. I regularly checked the moles on my skin. Last week the dermatologist cut off an advance party of melanoma that had invaded a mole on my leg. My thunder-cloud had burst. Cancer had touched me.
Last week friends touched me with prayer. They laid hands on me and prayed, quoting from Psalm 139. 13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
And I thought, “No. I am not wonderfully made. I have cancer.”
And then through tears, I realized David, who wrote the Psalm, was right. God doesn’t make mistakes. He didn’t make a mistake with me.
