God is Love
Good evening Catie journeyers,
Tonight Kevin is away in NYC. Travel lately has been sporadic for Kevin. Life and happiness have also been sporadic for all of us. Sunday we again faced an argument and the accompanying sadness. How will we ever put ourselves back together again? Neither Kevin nor I want to use Catie and the past year as a trump card – it is OK to play that card to increase donations to Catie’s Wish but not for everyday life!! Things were not going well. I was sick and not sleeping and anniversaries and memories were creeping around the corner. What are we to do? Do we stop and think about all that happened? Do we remember the feelings and the events that took place? Do we just keep going?
Today I think I figured it out at least a little of “it”. You do what you can. Monday I was too sick to do anything – so I didn’t. Maggie even made dinner. Tuesday I was still too sick. What that means is only what absolutely needs to get done gets done. So Mass and swimming lessons each were attended and nothing else. Wednesday my cold had moved out of my head and into my throat – making me feel much better. So much so I went – just like last year amidst the insanity of having to prepare yourself and your child for neurosurgery – to get my hair done.
It was a good day. Things are good. The kids are happy. Kevin and I are well. No one could ask any more for Catie. She has everything – God’s presence with her every day! I just finished reading another book about another child who recently died of brain cancer and was so saddened by the father’s thoughts of how he did not adequately protect his daughter. I try so hard to look at my understanding of God and my understanding of a situation like brain cancer and they just don’t fit together. The question “what kind of a loving God would create cancer?” must be a bogus question. Remember the bogus question from the old movie “MY COUSIN VINNY”? In the movie they are in the court room and Marisa Tomie is on the witness stand and she has been called to refute the testimony of the “expert” witness. Before she is able to do so the prosecutor has an opportunity to voie dire the witness. The question that is asked cannot be answered not because the witness cannot answer but rather because the question doesn’t have an answer.
That is exactly how I feel about the question “why would a loving God create pediatric cancer?” A loving God did not create cancer. However because it exists someone either created it or allowed it to be created, or so many of us think. If not God who? Well in my faith the devil has no creative power; leaving us with no answer. God allowed cancer to exist just like God blessed us with free will. God created the universe and mankind and then out of love for us, and so that we could freely choose not only to love one another but also LOVE GOD, we were given free will. God, after creating the world surrendered what He created to us out of love for us. I can barely surrender caring for anything in our house and that is only possessions, not people and love.
God fully understood, through the three persons of the Holy Trinity, the richness and blessings of free love and blessed us with this same gift. When Kevin and I are not arguing about something trivial we feel and understand this richness and the blessings associated with freely given love and we desire to shower one another with our love – expressing our love to the fullest extent that we are capable. It is in the free gift of love that you can understand that God exists. We also understand that God is love. We also understand that a loving God could never create something as awful as cancer. Instead, out of love, God created the doctors, nurses, social workers, chaplains, child care specialists, and researchers who have dedicated their lives to helping all the sick kids out there to feel a little love amidst their battle.
So tonight we ask God to shower you with His love and to ask you for your continued prayers for kids battling cancer and the blessed people who care for them.
May God bless you and the work of your hands,
Christine, Kevin, Maggie, Max, Catie, Mia, Molly, and M.E.
