Slaying Our Giants

Today we read about how David defeats Goliath with a sling shot and a single stone. It isn’t the simple act of a stone being thrown by a young boy that kills Goliath, but the Lord. David tells Goliath, “Today, Yahweh will deliver you into my hand; I shall kill you, I shall cut off your head; today, I shall give your corpse and the corpses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the wild beasts, so that the whole world may know that there is a God in Israel, and this whole assembly know that Yahweh does not give victory by means of sword and spear -- for Yahweh is lord of the battle and he will deliver you into our power.” (1 Samuel 17:46-47)

I feel like we (those of us fighting childhood cancer) are up against a giant and instead of mortally wounding him, our stones are bouncing off of him and he is taunting us. Yesterday one of my patients called with the complaint of some numbness, which she thought was from sitting too long in her wheelchair, which would not go away. A MRI was done and it showed cancer throughout her spine and a mass pressing on the nerves at the base of her spinal cord causing the numbness. We had been monitoring the small nodules in her lungs and while we are thinking that we are managing it, the cancer is spreading to her spine unbeknownst to us. There are days like today that I feel that the cancer is mocking us and that we are fighting a losing battle. But this battle is the Lord’s and I need to place it in his hands.

He is the one that guides us; that gives man the knowledge to develop new cancer treatments, the knowledge to understand cancer and helps us to continue our march toward a cure.  And He is the one that gives us the strength to endure days like yesterday and today; and those to come as we walk with this family as their child moves from this life to everlasting life. It is God who gives us the compassion to be with this family and to comfort them and guide them through their fears even though we are frightened too.  And even though there is nothing we can do to stop the cancer, we will continue on this journey with them. I had to pray for the courage and strength to get out of the pew this morning after Mass and go into work. I need to be a source of support for the new staff that may be dealing with this for the first time. I need to help her siblings deal with her impending death and I need to be a beacon of hope. I need to place all of this in God’s hands because that is the only way I can do this difficult work that He has called me to do.

“The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD!” (Job 1:21)