As a pastor, Mr. Jones knew scores of Bible verses. They’d been his faith’s anchor throughout his life during troubled times. Yet now, in the doctor’s office, those verses did nothing to soften the blow of the news.
‘We’re sorry, Mr. Jones. The bump we saw in the scan is a malicious tumour.’
Ceaseless tears streamed down his cheeks as, in the hospital’s parking, he simply wondered ‘why’: Why him? Why now?
Sitting in his car, the engine off, he felt a little ridiculous that he had no words to make himself feel better; every Sunday, when the congregation queued up to be blessed, he’d always have the right sentences, rooted in powerful Bible teachings, to make them at least smile with optimism.
Later, when he arrived home, he didn’t know what to say to Marguerite, his wife of more than forty years. So the words he thought of came out slow, battered and bruised like his very soul.
‘Marge, I gotta tell you something.’ He just couldn’t hold it in. They were having dinner then. And seconds before he spoke, his wife asked why his hands shook so uncontrollably.
‘A t…a tumour?’ Marguerite gasped out, like a punch in the stomach. Her hands too started shaking, her fork slipping from her grasp to the floor, clinking too loudly.
Later that week, their grownup, married sons, Tom and Will, came to visit them. Even they felt staggered by the news. How could they not be, what with their father’s locally renown sporty lifestyle and their mother’s longstanding healthy cooking?
‘Don’t know if I can do this, boys.’ Mr. Jones broke into a sob, the four of them hugged on the sofa, only their breaths audible for some long minutes. Not long after, they were all crying, desperate.
Desperate at the unknown cost of surgery.
Desperate to hear if chemo would be required.
Desperate to stay a family.
One day, alone in his church, Mr. Jones knelt in front of the stage, more tears brimming his eyes, pouring his heart out.
‘It’s not fair!’ he screamed time and again, the echo doubling the potency of his lamentation, high towards The Divine who, of course, listened. ‘It’s not right! I served you tirelessly! So why?’ He just needed an answer to it, to the ‘why’. ‘I’m done! Do you hear me? I’m through with serving here!’
Dear reader, do you believe in grace? Do you believe that the next day, just as Mr. Jones had lost all faith and the whole family went for another scan, which was a routine check to confirm that the tumour was still there, the tumour was no more?
Now, I ask: what makes Man, even men of the church like Mr. Jones, give up too easily on the infallible hope that God is?