Early on in our education, we are taught to ask the questions (especially when writing) – Who, What, When, Where and WHY.

If you are a storyteller you need to be able to share all the information (and if you are a dramatic storyteller, you know when to best share each of those ideas) to those listening or reading. If there is no WHY, then what is the point of the story?

If you are a scientist, you are driven by the WHY. Why does something happen the way it does? If I do this other thing will it change the way that happened? If so, then WHY?

And if you are a 2-year-old, you constantly ask WHY? So much so that the parent’s response may come back as “because I said so.”

But as a Christian, if you ask WHY, you are likely to not get an answer. You may get other people’s opinion and/or told to “look to the Bible”. But does that really ever answer the question WHY?

I heard a great line by a presenter in a bible study I am taking. I’m not sure the exact wording, but it was something like this:

You can’t ask WHY or you won’t be able to HEAL.

Believe me, there are thousands of times I would like to ask the question Why.

  • Why do I have cancer?
  • Why did it come back?
  • Why did dad get cancer?
  • Why did he have 3 types of cancer?
  • Why did J.R. get cancer?
  • Why am I still here when they both had such a shorter battle?
  • And the list goes on…

One thing I have learned on this journey of mine, I will not have an answer to these questions. I do not know, nor will I ever know what caused my cancer. And in order to move forward, I have to be OK with that.

Friends and acquaintances are sometimes shocked that I can get up and face the world each day. How do I do it? (Oh, yeah, I forgot that one at the beginning).

The HOW lies in not dwelling on the WHY.

This is not a debate about whether God caused the cancer, or if God could have taken the cancer away.

No, this is more. This is about believing and trusting God to be present in my life. Through the good (there was lots of that) and the bad (there has been lots of that, too) God is present, He rejoices with us and He mourns with us.

I don’t know why bad things happen, we won’t likely ever know. But through Faith, I can HEAL and face today, tomorrow, and as many days as I have ahead of me