Faith Like a Child

Kris, do you have your tissues? Hope so.

A lot of people are asking me how I feel right now, about what I'll get to later, and the answer is that I don't know. So, I'm trying to figure that out. Process, think, evaluate - trying to get to where I can say how I feel. I'll take you along my thought-process journey, and I'll start with a story I don't think anyone knows.

When I was in 6th grade the Chicken Soup for the Soul books became very popular and I loved reading the short stories. One day after school I was sitting in my room reading some from the 2nd edition and one story in particular hit too close to home and broke my heart. The author was a college aged girl who's dad had just passed away from cancer. All of her friends were talking about how he was such a wonderful example of how a father should be: he made special trips with just her, he wrote notes on her lunch napkins, he left her surprises in random places, and he was very involved in her life. She talked about how she wouldn't have him at her wedding, he wouldn't meet his grandkids, etc. At the time my dad was cancer- free, but I was so fearful that the story was foreshadowing into my future.

My dad wrote notes in my lunch box.
My dad and I had special dates.
My dad was the most involved dad of any of my friends.
And I was terrified that he would miss my wedding and miss being a grandfather.

My dad came in and saw me crying, so I made him read the story. He pulled me onto his lap and said, "That isn't going to be us baby girl, I will do anything I can to be sure that it won't be us". He all but promised me.

So with childhood faith I believed. I believed my dad and I believed that God had the power to make sure that the story I read wasn't going to be the story of my life. And up to 3 weeks before my dad passed away, I believed with every ounce in my body. Family members had already accepted that he would one day pass away and that cancer had won. He had already resigned to the truth that he would never see 1999. Not me though. When I realized the truth he was already almost gone, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I never knew exactly what the phrase "faith like a child" meant, but that was it. I truly had faith like a child and with all my innocence I believed up until the bitter end.

Fast forward to today. Everyone wants to know how I am feeling, how I'm doing, and all I can think is that I wish I would have faith like a child again. My aunt Mandy has been diagnosed with breast cancer and I want someone to sit and tell me that she's going to join the club of survivors. I want to hear it, and I want to believe it. I want the confidence and certainty that I had when I was 12.

Aunt Mandy. The one I wrote about in January; the one my parents thought so highly of to offer her name to their daughter; the one who has made a point to be involved in every aspect of my life despite distance; the one who travelled to Texas for William's baptism, to Colorado for his birthday; one of the single most important people in my life. She has cancer? How? Why? What did she do? What did we as a family do?

I know, from my own experience and from general logic, that she didn't do anything; we didn't do anything. But those same questions that flooded my brain 16 years ago are storming their way back in now. The root of the confusion is that I don't understand why bad things happen to good people. I know we live in a sinful world and that there is evil all around us. But why do bad things happen to good people? Aunt Mandy is an incredible person in more ways than I can describe. Why should she endure this? And at the end of the day I have to figure out how to separate one battle lost from this one. Different person, different cancer, different battle. Just because God didn't cure my dad doesn't me he won't cure Mandy. I know this.

I just need to have faith in this. Faith like a child. How do I get that?