Sin is like a cancer, cancer is a Sin

Cancer sucks. JUST going to put that out there! It really does. It's currently an almost incurable illness that continues to take many people we love from this earth.

For me, cancer got much more real almost 4 years ago when my dad was diagnosed with lung cancer. Cancer was no longer something I heard other people talk about, but it was now something I was talking about.

Then on Friday, December 23rd, I found out that cancer was going to defeat my dad. Maybe in a few weeks, maybe in a month or two, but in the end cancer was going to win.....again.

On Friday, February 17th, just 4 days after he got to meet his new granddaughter, my dad lost his almost 4 year battle with cancer.

Our last family photo all together...

See the problem with solving cancer in my opinion is cancer's simplicity. Cancer is the abnormal growth of cells that grow out of control and crowd out normal cells. This makes it hard for the body to work the way it should. The difficult things then with cancer is that the body is doing something it normally does- produce cells- but instead abnormal cells are being produced.

So my definition of cancer THEN is- something normal that goes horribly wrong.

And a lot of emotions, blame, and questions come with cancer. WHY did this happen? It doesn't seem fair that my 56 year old dad would get this? Why do people we love have to leave this earth?

But what I've come to realize and strongly believe is blame for this- death, sickness, cancer, hate- CAN'T be attributed to God.

See Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden. They could eat ANYTHING they wanted. The only thing they couldn't eat was something from the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Well of course, they ended up doing the one thing they weren't supposed to do. And sin entered the world. And with it came pain, suffering, death, AND cancer.

That's right, in the beginning there was no cancer! Why? Because there was no death. God's creation in the beginning was PERFECT.

But when Adam and Eve made the choice that ALL of us would have made- sin came into the world and brought a whole mess of bad stuff with it.

That's why I think it's so appropriate and ironic that cancer and sin are compared together. We cannot solve sin on our own- there is NO cure. The only cure was Jesus perfect life, death, and resurrection. Cancer so far has no REAL cure. Our strategy for beating cancer is destroying cells both GOOD and BAD to stop the abnormal cells from spreading.Or we remove the mass or tumor where the cells are located. So in that way, we aren't curing it, we are just removing it.

So if we as people can't solve cancer, what do we do? Do we blame God that it's here? Do we give up on trying to find a cure?

I say a resounding NO to both questions.

No, we can't blame God for cancer. Blame SIN for cancer. There was no cancer in the beginning. There was no death in the beginning. THAT came to the world in Genesis 3 AFTER God had already created everything. We instead need to look for God in the GOOD that can come from cancer. I saw this last week when I got to see my dad meet his granddaughter. My dad was given 2-8 weeks to live....he made it 8...exactly. Just the right amount of time to do what he wanted to do. Maybe for someone else the blessing in cancer is a heightened awareness or appreciation for a person. Maybe it's a bond formed with someone else through treatment or through a cancer walk.We look to God for help, not to blame or explain.

And do we give up on finding a cure?

No, we never give up! We keep walking in Relay for Life activities, (Find a Relay for Life near you) , we keep running up stairs (Fight For Air Climbing Events) ,and we keep believing that somewhere there is a cure for this.

We are God's greatest and most amazing creation. In fact we were SO great, God had to divide up our speaking languages and spread us apart so we didn't focus TOO much on ourselves and be able to accomplish anything without God. (God decided to split us people up)

Solving cancer is certainly possible BUT our solution will most definitely include God. And for all those who have suffered before OR are still suffering from cancer- I pray that they may rejoice in the ultimate healing that will ONLY be found with God in Heaven. That kind of healing that I know my dad is feeling now.

In honor of a great man and a great example of a dad- Mark Hoffman. Thanks pops, I'm going to miss you until I see you again!