I've tried to hide from the assassin, tried to deny his existence. Like a child who believes there's a monster in his closet, the horror of what lurks behind the turn of a doorknob is too much to bear in the dark. I've tried to pretend there's nothing to fear, that it's safe to sleep at night, but there is no denying that he is terrifying; I cannot hide from him or lock him away in my mind.

The reality of the pain he inflicts stuns me, robs me of my stable sense of balance in the world, the way I think life is and should be lived. Disease runs his circle around my family and friends and I tremble in this fleshly body.

* * *

I didn't know what cancer was until I was told my Grandma had it. I was young and did not understand. She traveled the well-worn path through treatments and sickness, but my questioning child-eyes only caught snapshots of the carnage: the hands that held me, that taught me to thread a needle, unable to hold a cup of water, the strong woman now frail and weak, the helper and the helpmate now helpless. Her hair wintered and fell out. Her body, spent and laid to rest.

My other grandmother's funeral is clear in my mind. She was diagnosed and died of cancer within two days. She underwent no treatments; Dementia and Alzheimer kept her from feeling the pain as it grew and spread through her body. The poison went undetected. She died before the goodbyes could be given, before we knew it would be so soon.

* * *

Her hair was just beginning to fall out that day, and she said it would only be a few more days before it was all gone. She asked me to shave it off for her. All of it. She didn't want to impose on me, and if I didn't want to, she understood. “I've done it enough it's not emotional anymore!” she laughed. How many times had she gone through chemo? How many times had she gone under the blade to cut off her hair, that dying life, that sign that the body is killing itself?

We shaved it off on the back patio and I watched the wind blow away the smaller pieces. Vanity of vanities. All is vanity. Man. The wind passes over him and he is gone. Beauty and life are blown away. Sense and reason lay helpless. Wisdom and glory are cut off. Cancer prunes us, lays us bare to see our true selves.

* * *

I see him lurking in the victims' homes, invincible to any attack, unafraid of any threat. Nothing can touch him. They know he is there, destroying their lives and their happiness, but they have learned to be joyful despite his constant presence, despite his deadly whispers. I come to help them, to fight the assassin by building up what he destroys, to encourage, to give hope and helping hands. But every time I leave with more than I have given. I come feeling empty of hand and heart, and I leave with a mind full of thoughts and passion and emotion. Confused, but inspired. Thankful, but guilty. Joyful, but dazed.

It's easy to give superficial care, to say kind words or think pitying thoughts, to do the men-pleasing deeds. But that only sows the bitterness of guilt in my soul.

Sometimes it's easy to care in prayer. Sometimes it's easy to forget them in prayer. God will take care of them. What can I say that will help them, anyway?

What unbelief. What faithlessness. I weep to rethink my thoughts.

Does He who formed the ear not hear? Does He who made the epidermis, the dermis, the capillaries, the lymph nodes, yes, even cancer itself, does He not see, does He not know? Does He not buffet our bodies? He buffets the ones He strikes, and He buffets me by not striking me. We are all under His hand.

But what do I try to gain from all of this? What sense am I making? Or maybe this is just something that cannot be understood. “Why?” Job said, “Why?!” He asked, he did not understand.

Why is there cancer? And not only why. It is, and so I must accept it: how is the question. How do I swallow this reality that shatters what I think the world should be like? How do I live in a world that demands cancer, cancer treatments, and cancer patients? How do I not let fear and hatred consume me, shrivel my already small existence? Fear must not win.

* * *

Some people really do have nightmares about cancer. Some live in continual fear of it. But perfect love casts out all fear. What does that mean? Will my love for God cast out any fear I have? Then I really don't love God, because I fear much. What kind of fear is James talking about?

My fears make me feel very small, but somehow, by His grace, it is when I am small, when I am weak, then He is great in me. That is when I ask God to do crazy things for me and for His people. That is when I first begin to believe Him. It is the resurrection at the crux of the cross.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge. Fear the Lord. Love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength. Love the Lord. Perfect love casts out all fear.

* * *

But some children don't live in a continual nightmare. Another fear, a wonderful, more pervasive fear defeats their nightmares and allows them to live without fear. In To Kill a Mockingbird, Scout and Jem fear their father, Atticus. Like their other fears, he is greater than them, but unlike their fears, he is greater not just in size and strength, but in goodness and love. They fear him because he is great, because he is good, because he is love. Their fears drive them to the one who is greater, for the fear of a small child does not make him want to be bigger - it makes him want to cling to the One who is bigger.

* * *

Who is it that fights for me? The Lord of Hosts, the Death-Conqueror, the Sea-Shaker, the Life-Giver.

Let the fears and assassins that I hide from show themselves, and in all their glory. Let them come out and be terrified before the God who made them. He is so much greater than they are. He casts out all fear of them in me, because I fear Him. I love and trust Him. He is greater than all of them; they are nothing to Him.

Cancer, you are little. There is my God. He fights for me. The chariots of fear have been thrown into the sea. I have passed through the turbulent waves, safe. Death may be an ever-swelling stream, but I have been swept away in His flood, washed in His saving water.

Let the monsters in my closet parade out before my God. How little they will be when He is in the room. He is the measure of fear. He is a fear to run to, to love. Nothing could be more wonderful than to fear Him; He is God and I am not.

I am brought to my knees. He raises me up; healing is in His wings.