My wife is having surgery today. It’s intimidating and encouraging. The issue came out of nowhere. We’ve only known about this for about a week. Doctors don’t know what the cist is in her uterine area. They think they have ruled out ovarian cancer through multiple scans. Today they will extract the cist.
The unknown can be intimidating. Robie is understandably concerned about “going under.” Mortality flirts with her thoughts. When I first heard of the possibility of this being something serious, I was in Chicago. When I heard the word cancer and the phrase “I want to see my kids grow up” from my wife, I was on the phone. The emotional impact hit my gut with force and pulled tears to my eyes. Thankfully, doctors have since ruled out ovarian cancer.
In all of this, we are encouraged. We are not mainly encouraged because its not cancer (nothing is for sure until the laproscopy), though that is very good news. We are encouraged to know and share the belief that God appoints difficult trials with well-intentioned purpose. His providential purposes are manifold.
We hope to discover some of them along the way. Perhaps the purpose is missional, to share the sufficiency of Jesus with others in the face of mortality. Perhaps the purpose is personal, to sanctify and sweeten our trust in a beneficent Creator and redeemer. Perhaps it is marital, to strengthen our marriage through trial. Or perhaps its just normal, normal suffering in a broken world, a reminder of the universal need for Someone greater than man to repair and renew the world as we know it.
God’s purposes are probably all of these and more. Pray that we would discover his purposes and re-discover him as we embrace this trial. And pray for mercy, mercy and hope, especially for Robie. Mercy for a clean, complication-free surgery and hope in a God who is always good.