See Part 1: Walking Through The Storm
and Part 2: Where Is God When Cancer Strikes?

As I sit down to write, today marks three weeks since Chris was admitted to hospital because of extreme pain.  I won’t describe it because it hurts too much to do so, but imagine the worst possible pain you’ve ever seen someone in and then quadruple it.  Then imagine this being witnessed by his children.  There really are no words to express the sheer hell of witnessing that and, despite every effort to the contrary, being utterly unable to help.  Paramedics, A&E, Hospice support team, Paramedics and repeat until eventually, admission to the oncology ward.  For two weeks, Chris was unable to even leave his bed but sheer and utter determination has driven him to struggle and strive until he could transfer to the chair next to his bed.  Suddenly what was once a huge, enormous world with a multitude of daily tasks to complete has been reduced to a single hospital room, bed and chair.  I’m not ashamed to say that we have wept together, and individually, many many times.

So when all is stripped away, when life has been utterly and completely turned upside down and has in so many ways become a horror of grief, pain, anger and questions, where do you turn?  As a person of faith, do you turn away from God?  Shout at the seemingly concrete sky and say “WHY DON’T YOU STOP THIS??  WHY DON’T YOU FIX IT???”  Well yes, to the shouting part at least.  The turning away from faith part?  Sure, I was tempted to consider it for a time because how on earth do you carry on believing in the goodness and ultimate power of God during a time like this?  I think that’s a very human and therefore very normal reaction and I’m not going to pretend that it hasn’t crossed my mind, because it has. As I’ve said in previous posts, I am a Christian and I am a vicar but I’m also human and I don’t have a “get out of jail free” card for this kind of thing – as much as I wish I did.

But here’s the thing: if I turned away from my faith, then it wouldn’t actually change my circumstances, the cancer wouldn’t go away, the suffering wouldn’t stop, the heartbreak wouldn’t be healed.  In fact the only thing that would change is that I would feel even more alone in the midst of this hell.  So, reluctantly, slowly, and at first in just a breath of pain, I have chosen to pray, chosen not to walk away from my faith, chosen to try to keep my eyes on God, even when that means feeling like I’m only clinging on by my fingertips, I have chosen to stay instead of to walk away.  Make no mistake, that choice costs me dearly because in many ways, it takes a strength I don’t feel that I have right now, but actually, the alternative is worse.  Sometimes, often, faith is an active choice, even when we don’t understand, don’t have the answers and our hearts are breaking under the pain, but we can choose to cling on.  That’s a choice that I’m making right now.

A local priest sent me a postcard with this image on it:

(c) Sieger Koder, Stronghold PT, (c) Pauline Books & Media

It depicts a couple of stories in the Bible when the disciples were in a boat on the sea of Galilee and a terrific storm blew up, threatening to overwhelm the boat and yet Jesus was simply sleeping in the back of the same boat.  The disciples were utterly terrified and overwhelmed by the storm, finally shrieking at Jesus, “DO SOMETHING!”  (I paraphrase slightly) Jesus wakes up, stretches a bit, yawns maybe (yes, I am taking liberties with the text!) and the first words out of his mouth – were they an instant command to calm the storm?  Words bringing some comfort to his friends in their terror?  No, actually they weren’t.  Jesus first words were, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?”  (Matthew 8:25) And I can imagine the looks on those disciples faces, sheer and utter incredulity – “Are you KIDDING ME???  Jesus, look around!!!!  We’re going to die!!!!”  (again, a few liberties…)  But then, Jesus speaks to the waves and calms the storm.

Why are you so afraid?  Where is your faith?  I can think of better times for Jesus to have said this to his friends, perhaps when sitting in the warm sunshine on a pretty mountain somewhere?  A time when they could mull over the strength of their faith and chew over the theological issues raised by his question….?  But the thing is, faith is actually forged in the storm, not separate to it.  It’s easy to have all of the right answers when times are good, peaceful and calm but at those times, we don’t actually need God – not really, not in quite the same way.  The times when we need God are the times when we are crying out, “GOD, DO SOMETHING!!!”  Because then, we give space in our hearts and lives for God to come.

There’s another, very similar, story where after a long day preaching and teaching to the crowds, Jesus retreats to a quiet place to pray and he sends his disciples on ahead in a boat, telling him he’ll meet them.  So they climb into a boat and set off across the Sea of Galilee (a place by the way that is known for it’s sudden and severe storms) and when the disciples are some distance from the land, their boat is being “buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it.” (Matthew 14:24) They’ve been in this boat all night, presumably battling the storm for most or all of it; they’re tired, they’re almost certainly wondering where Jesus is and why he hasn’t met them as he promised he would.  Where is their teacher and why has he left them to face this storm alone?  Why did he send them out into the boat at all, surely if he really was God then he knew the storm was coming?

Then, the bible says, “shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake.”  Just having a casual stroll across the waves, as you do.  Perhaps unsurprisingly the disciples are utterly terrified, tired and overwhelmed by the night’s events, they are convinced they are seeing a ghost (well, wouldn’t you be?)  But this time, in slightly more comforting words than the last story, Jesus speaks to them and says, “Take courage! It is I.  Don’t be afraid.”  Well ok, that makes it alright then, because we routinely see our friend and teacher strolling across A LAKE.

But Peter says something quite extraordinary, he decides to test Jesus by putting his own life at risk.  “Lord, if it’s you, tell me to come to you on the water.”  Now that is either incredible faith or sheer idiocy – maybe both – but Jesus replies with just one word: “Come.”  And Peter (who knows what the other disciples were thinking or saying at this point) climbs out of the boat and walks on the water towards Jesus.  Wow, what an amazing miracle but for me, right now, the key part of this story is found in the next bit because while Peter is performing this little act of faith/idiocy, the storm hasn’t actually stopped.  The story tells us, “when he saw the wind, he was afraid and beginning to sink, he cried out, “Lord save me!”

How different is that moment really to the times when we are in the middle of our own storm, trying desperately to cling to our faith and walking towards Jesus, but feeling utterly overwhelmed by the storm?  Terrified that we will be overcome?  Crying out to God, “LORD SAVE ME!”  How different is that really to some of the cries I have uttered in recent weeks when I’ve begged, “GOD WHY DON’T YOU STOP THIS????”  Lord, save me.  God where are you?  Lord, save me.

I can bet that what Peter really wanted was for Jesus to speak to the wind and the waves, just like in the previous story and to calm them.  He was happy to make a demonstration of faith if the lake was calm, but fighting his way through the wind, climbing over the rolling waves, struggling not to be overcome by the storm and still moving towards Jesus?  Now that part was hard.  But for me, right now, that’s precisely the point.  Peter was crying out to Jesus, “Lord save me!” and when he had his eyes on the very real obstacles in front of him, the reality of the storm with him standing in the middle of the lake, he started to sink.  In other words, Peter was focusing on the storm and allowing himself to be overwhelmed by it. He was trying to move towards Jesus, but instead he was sinking because all he could see was his own fear.

Then, Jesus reaches out his hand and catches Peter just as he’s sinking – look at the picture above again and see the two hands clinging to each other.  You can’t even see Peter because he’s under the water but Jesus is reaching down right into the source of his fear and pulling him out.  But here’s the thing, at this point, Jesus doesn’t actually calm the storm.  He pulls Peter towards him and says, similar to the last story, “You of little faith, why did you doubt?”  And I can pretty much see Peter spluttering and coughing up sea water as he looks at Jesus incredulously, “Um, why did I doubt?!  Maybe because I was DROWNING??!!  Yeah, that could be it!”  But the next line in the story hit me like a ton of bricks (or maybe swamped me like a wave)   “And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down.”  Did you notice it?  Jesus didn’t calm the waves while Peter was still standing there, having nearly drowned and being pulled back up out of the water, he didn’t allow Peter to walk back across a lake that looked like glass.  When, and only when, they climbed into the boat did the wind die down.  That means that however far Peter had walked on the waves to try to reach Jesus, wherever he had nearly sunk into the waves and even when Jesus pulled him back up to the surface, the storm still wasn’t calmed.  Instead, Peter had to keep his eyes on Jesus and walk beside him, through the storm, all the way back to the boat.  In other words, Peter had to trust Jesus in the first place, even when he nearly died, and he had to keep on trusting Jesus as they walked together through the storm until they reached a place of safety.  Then, and only then, did the storm become calm.

So for me, right now, I’m walking through the storm.  The wind and the waves are all around me, it feels like they’re threatening to completely overwhelm me, it feels like I’m going to drown in the sheer fear, heartache and nightmare that is my particular storm.  For me, the temptation to walk away from my faith is represented in the moment when Peter takes his eyes off Jesus and starts to sink into the sea.  Nothing about his circumstances has actually changed, the only difference is that he takes his eyes off the One who is capable of saving him.  So I have a choice, I can choose to take my eyes off God, to walk away from my faith and to drown in the waves of this particular storm, or I can cry out to God, “Lord, save me!” and I can trust that just like Peter, in uttering those words, I too will feel the strong grip of hands reaching down into the waves to pull my head above water.  I can choose to drown or I can choose to keep my eyes on God and trust that He’s walking with me, beside me, surrounding me, even in the midst of the storm and I can hope that one day, even though I don’t know when that day might be, that we will get back to the safety of the little boat and that God will speak to the wind and the waves and calm them.

Make no mistake, this is a choice and it’s not an easy one but it’s better than the alternative. And so, because it helps, I listen to music, which becomes my prayer when I have no words to speak.  For example, Jenn Johnson and Bethel Music sing, “I am the Lord your God, I go before you now.  I stand beside you.  I’m all around you.  Though you feel I’m far away, I’m closer than your breath, I am with you, wherever you go….” (Come To Me, Bethel Music)  And I watch, and read, “The Shack” many times over, particularly the Lake Scene where lead character Mack is in a small boat in the middle of the lake, nearly overwhelmed by his own ‘Great Sadness’ but Jesus is standing next to him saying firmly and strongly, “Mack, look at me.  LOOK at me!”  And as Mack manages to do so, the power of his Great Sadness loses it’s grip on him and he manages to keep his eyes on Jesus.  Tim McGraw and Faith Hill sing an incredibly powerful song, “Keep Your Eyes On Me” which in part says, “Keep your eyes on me, keep your eyes on me, when it hurts too much to see, keep your eyes on me.  Ain’t it the sinner who gets all the grace sometimes, ain’t it the saint who picks up the pieces left behind, yeah and it’s human to hurt the one, you hurt the one you love the most, and you can’t find the sun.  Keep your eyes on me, swear you’re all alone sometimes, keep your eyes on me, and you can’t find your way home sometimes, keep your eyes on me….”  (Keep Your Eyes On Me)

I still keep crying and crying out for help, I still weep and rant and rage and I still have many questions in the midst of this unending storm, but I choose not to walk away, but instead to walk towards.  Pray for us, please.