Fair warning: this post is a downer. But first let me say how blessed I am. I was in a wreck last month and walked away with no injuries. Seat belts are awesome. I am grateful I wasn’t seriously injured. (My truck and laptop weren’t so lucky.)
On the other hand, I’m sad. I just found out my brother-in-law has prostate cancer. His brother died from prostate cancer last December. He lost both parents to prostate cancer and breast cancer. He lost his first wife (my sister) to a brain tumor 20 years ago. His 2nd wife beat breast cancer (so far.) Sometimes it seems like God picks on certain families. I don’t get it. I hope it isn’t too bad. His last daughter is getting married next week, so I’ll find out more about the prognosis.
Of course tragedy strikes everywhere, but we’ve had some unusual things happen in the neighborhood. A neighbor commit suicide soon after moving in. A woman was struck and killed by lightning on Easter Sunday a few years ago. A woman in our ward (first time mother) gave birth to twins. The family posted a photo showing her smiling with her babies, and then she bled to death, in the hospital! To top it all off, another neighbor, after having gone through a year or so round of chemo and radiation for ovarian cancer, was just told the tumors have returned and they have no treatment options left.
I don’t blame God. Bad things happen to everyone, and I don’t believe that God is killing people with cancer. It’s part of life. But it sucks. A friend of mine said,
Maybe you want to yell what Tevye said in Fiddler on the Foof: “I know, I know. We are Your chosen people. But, once in a while, can’t You choose someone else?”
Wheat & Tares 
So sorry for the tough time you and your family and friends are going through. I do hope you do some self-care.
Wow.
No doubt adversity is not evenly distributed. I’ve long wondered why certain families/individuals suffer trial after trial while other families
experience few trials. A common belief in the church is that trials are tests from God. My view however, is that God is more “hands-off” than
“hands-on.” I just can’t believe in a God that helps people find lost keys but not abused, neglected and starving children.
Glad you are okay. So sorry for your family member’s losses and challenges.
(On another note has your brother-in-law’s family been tested for the breast cancer gene–BRCA1 and 2? there can be a link between prostate and
breast cancer)
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3720154/
There was a time in my life when I was overwhelmed by such tragedies in my own life. Horrific things kept happening — and then they stopped. Now, I see other people go through unspeakable things and I shutter. Their circumstances could easily be me and mine.
Such times make us appreciate the good times, but more than appreciation, tragedy makes us mistrust the easier times in our lives. We learn through experience that tragedy happens quickly and without warning.
I have grown to despise the oft quoted saying “ God Protects His People When They Live Righteously”.
I now ask,” God protects His people from WHAT!??” Righteousness does not protect from cancer, other illness, financial ruin, unemployment or any other horrible life circumstances. Horrible things happen to really good people, and no one can answer the theological puzzle of Why.
Often people respond with non-drinker/non-smoker statistics. I feel that the WOW is simply a health law. It is not righteousness. It has nothing to do with whether someone is a good person. No one becomes a more righteous individual simply because they do not use tobacco.
Such horrible times do increase our empathy. Those who have never experienced tough times are too often the ones who are quick to claim they are immune to tragedy due to their righteous habits. Of all attitudes, I think that offends God the most.
Glad you are ok. Car accidents are scary business. So sorry for the stresses and worry your family is facing. It feels like it’s been a summer of stressful news in my little corner. I’ve definitely been doing the circle of why is this happening. And is God even listening to me. A pastor friend advised me that it isn’t that God isn’t hearing or helping us but He’s waiting to see how we are using our faith in our troubles. I’m not sure yet about that advice. It opens up a zillion other questions. But I’m sending you positive and healing thoughts that all is well in your world today.
I’m very glad you were not hurt. I really don’t know why it is that some people seem to have it so bad, and others, like me, seem to have it so good. I get anxious thinking about it — is my turn coming?
When it comes to people being blessed for being righteous, I think that refers to blessings as a people, rather than blessings as an individual. For example, the blessings promised in Malachi for paying one’s tithing are to the people as a whole, not so much as to individual tithe payers. I do believe that a righteous people will tend to be more prosperous as a whole (this as much as a natural consequence as divine intervention), but even then, I could see the righteous people tried and tested (as Alma the elder’s people were).
The part I really can’t explain is how I’ve felt God assist me in my life (even with what are clearly “1st-world problems”) when I see others suffering so much more. It makes me feel guilty to ask God for anything — why should He listen to me when I have it so good, relatively speaking? Yet, I’m very grateful for the support I’ve received from Him.
So glad you’re alright and have a tale to tell!
Sorry to hear about your B-i-L’s prostate cancer as well. But DON’T approach it as a death sentence despite the sad outcome of his family’s cancers. Everyone is an individual and medical technology marches ever onward with new options that may very well not have been available to them. .
My husband has prostate cancer too. He discovered his in an unfortunately advanced state as we’d been out of the country and away from our healthcare network for about 18 months. Nevertheless, after about 9 months of treatment his last PSA was “undetectable”.
Good medicine can make all the difference but so can having a positive attitude. I recently lost a dear friend to breast cancer. She was a remarkable lady and not the least because of her amazing approach to life. When her breast cancer recurred 8 years ago she did some research and discovered that the significant factor for survivors of the Japanese internment during WWII was not youth or vigor but an optimistic attitude. She made that her mantra and outlived her projections by 5 years. She might still be alive but she also developed an undiagnosed and untreated diabetes and the combination was just too much.
I hope your B-i-L is also going to be survivor and I know you’ll help him get past his fears and past experiences and make the most of the time he has. He may discover it’s a lot more than he may now expect.
MH-
I’m glad you are still with us! And in good spirits!
MH – wow, just wow. That is a crazy set of circumstances. That life can produce such sorrow and misery and on the other hand, ecstasy and exquisite joy is amazing. Good to see you are still with us!!!
I concur with Lois above. As you know, my mum recently died from ovarian cancer – she had breast cancer before that. She has the BRCA 2 gene. It is passed 50/50 to children. There are four of us kids and 2 have the gene. I am one of the kids who does not have it. It is brutal and they will likely die from what it will do to them. Genetic testing and subsequent action are the key. That gene expresses itself in males with prostate cancer and even male breast cancer. I have three daughters (and a son). It would be a disaster to have had the gene and pass it onto them. Thankfully, the worst it seems I’ve passed onto them is a bad sense of humour and stubbornness.
One thing I always struggled with in the church was the fanatical desire to label something as a blessing or a trial. This never made sense to me. It forces god to be a mongrel psychopath or a benevolent favourtist. My mum was a good person. Not perfect, but very good. She suffered for 7 years with cancer, undergoing almost every horrific and filthy thing that that disease does to a person. She died in an unconscious state after a week of pretty much being “out of it”.
But for all that cancer took from her, I was able to spend some of my best moments with her. I wrote my funeral talk while in her last weeks. I visited her in hospital and gave it to her to read. It was one of the most intimate moments I ever spent with her. We expressed our deep love for each other and hugged for a long time.
And so, do I think cancer is bad. Yes. I hate it. It killed my mum and it will likely take my brother and sister that have this gene. It causes so much pain, anguish and suffering. But. It gave her time. It gave me time – time to express my love for her and to serve her. My closest moments to my mum were in those last years, months, weeks and days.
Mum asked me to read what I had written. I also had the privilege of reading a talk at her funeral that she wrote before she died. So for me, the greatest irony was that cancer thought it had the final say. Not true cancer, mum did.
This put me in mind of a radio programme I heard many years ago now, an interview with a woman who had a gruelling life, from parents in concentration camps, husband contracting HIV from contaminated blood products, and child developing leukaemia or some such… it seems things cluster like that for some families. Really tough.
On an intellectual level aren’t clusters used to determine whether a data set is real, or contrived?
Glad you survived the accident relatively unscathed, and I hope things improve.