The storm rages outside, thunder and lightning shake and
flash the 6 windows I look through, as I sit on the couch in my sister’s house.
Over 2,000 miles away from home, on the other side of the country, I watch as
the storm thrashes around me. It is comforting and foreign. Living in drought
ridden California for the past 6 years has made this encounter sweet and
worthy.
The house is quiet and calm. Children are in bed sleeping,
my sister and her husband and away on an island, capturing the passion of their
love for one another. This trip was planned a while ago. I would come for a
week and spend time with my nieces and nephew, while they were on vacation,
then I would go back home.
This trip, however, it longer. I am staying another week.
Three months earlier:
The long two hour drive from Fresno to Bakersfield for work is a
welcome treat for me to encounter my God. I worship and pray and have long
conversations about our calling, where we are going, how He wants us to partner
with him. Weddings and pregnancies and school and jobs all swarm around my
head, trying to process and plan the next 6 months of the hustle and bustle of
my life.
The oil fields turn into orchards and vineyards and many
miles of land, filled with agriculture fill my view. My phone rings and it is
my sister. She is young, vibrant and beautiful. A mom who has spent most of her
adult life homeschooling children and pursuing a healthy lifestyle of clean
eating and cross fit. Her heart longs to be valued and her mind fights to stay
focused on all that is pure and holy, in the midst of healing.
Her voice is quiet and calm as she recaps her medical
history to me. A long arduous encounter with many months of intense pain and
bleeding. She has seen many doctors and had some procedures down to aid her
body to stop, but it persists. Then, as if all of life stood still and I could
see the wings of the flies flying in the air in slow motion, she said the word.
The word that is like acid to the soul. The word that is
filled with filth and devastation. That word. The word I have heard too many
times from too many people I love in my family…
CANCER
I don’t say a word, at first. I don’t know what to say
really. Then as if a volcano of rage rose up in me I began to get angry. I
started to pray over my sister and declare life and truth and God’s promises. I
prayed against every generational curse and agreement and cursed cancer and
commanded it to die. I couldn’t even shed a tear. I was not going to give
cancer that place.
I spoke directly to the cancer and told it to go to the pit
of hell where it belongs. I battled and fought in my soul and told my sister I
would stand and fight for her. She giggled and said that her best friend did
the same. Got angry and said, oh NO… not today.
My trip was extended and she planned her surgery the week
after she got back from her vacation from her husband, so I could be here.
Yet I feel so overwhelmed. The battle is great. I asked the
LORD if I could carry her burden and the emotional intensity of how cancer
wrecks the mind with fear and anxiety, is so wicked and demonic that rest is
fleeting.
TODAY:
the storm has passed. My sister successfully went
through all her pre op surgeries. The cancer did not spread and surgery is in
two days. The weight of this wickedness is so heavy that I am overcome with
exhaustion and fall asleep at 6:30 pm. When I wake 4 hours later, the house is
quiet and calm, everyone is in bed asleep.
CANCER again, but NOT ANYMORE. That’s it, you’re done!!! You
cannot and will not find your way in my family anymore… My mom, grandma, dad,
cousin and now sister… NO… You are done. No more.
The storm is gone and the sun shined its rays into the
window today… it reminded me of the story her husband told me as he wrestled
with the word… on his wife
He was having a tough time at work… nothing was working our
right, frustration and heaviness weighed on him, as he wanted to be home and
not where he was. At the end of the day, he was driving back to his air B&B
to get some much needed rest, but there is a dark, fierce black cloud heading
straight towards him. He had to drive through the storm. He had to drive in
right through the middle of it. And he did. He pulled into a restaurant to eat,
just as the storm finally passed. He sat down and looked out the window and
there he saw a big bright beautiful rainbow. The reflection of the sun on the
water that had just poured down.
It was a beautiful picture of their place. Go through the
storm, rest, and remember God’s promise. It was then, when he told me that I
knew my sister would be free of this wicked word that attacks. It was then that
I was confident it would no longer be able to make its way in our family
And like the drought ridden California, that has persisted
for years… so will cancer be in the many many generations to come… in a drought,
with no life and place to grow.
