when bad weeks end with good friday

it was april 19th, eight years ago, when i got the phone call confirming my doctor’s suspicions: cancer. 

i’m sorry she said.

holy week and cancer. how could it be?

i was at my friend’s house planting flowers on her deck. she had just come home that day from her own double mastectomy surgery. 

surely lightening doesn’t strike in the same place twice. in a strange way, that’s sort of what i was counting on. friends and in the same bible study, breast cancer couldn’t [wouldn’t] touch both of us in this same season, right?

i was wrong.

my hands deep in dirt. 

my heart in my throat.

and my fear was all around me when i saw the doctor’s number appear on my phone screen.

yes. cancer. i’m sorry. 

stumbling up to her bedroom, i put my head in her lap and we wept together. 

that was my april 19th. diagnosis day.

it’s been 8 years since that phone call.

those unpleasant words resulted in my own double mastectomy and a lifetime supply of tamoxifen, but what i want to tell you about most on this good friday morning all these years later is how much more it brought. you’re not ever going to hear me say cancer was a blessing, but there were blessings in it.

easter weekend followed a few days after my news. i had grown up in church and always loved easter. always thought i understood it pretty well. always got the whole good friday grief and sunday rejoicing thing. the cross, the stone, the empty grave. i got it. i did.

but that year, with cancer stamped hard on me, easter felt different. our family stood worshipping in the verizon amphitheater for the passion good friday service and it’s probably the closest i’ve ever felt the heartbeat of Jesus. eight years later, i can’t quite remember the band performing or the exact songs we were singing, but, being broken wide open that week, i felt the alive presence of Jesus stronger than ever before.

though our week had been bad—devastating, in fact—friday was good. so good.

the cross of Jesus is always powerful, nothing can add to it or subtract from it. but our connection to the cross becomes different when we are in those suffering places of fear or pain or brokenness.

we cling.

we cry out.

and the cross truly becomes everything.

"for our sake, He made Him who knew no sin to be sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." ~ 2 corinthians 5:21

it’s been 8 years. i am healthy, cancer free and grateful. later today, everyone will start arriving home for this easter weekend. we will all be together and i can’t wait. life isn’t perfect. we aren’t without our struggles, but, gosh, it’s pretty normal and, for this moment, kind of nice.

but here’s the thing to which i keep coming back—

why does it take such suffering and struggle for us to identify more fully with our Savior’s sacrifice? why must we be so broken before we are able to break free from the numbing quality of our somewhat normal lives?

i’m walking alongside a couple of different friends right now who are in long-long suffering places. but even with their uncertain and unclear futures, they have such clarity in their faith. they are clinging. they are crying out. the cross is their everything. it’s not just a temporary high or a desperate grasping at straws—it’s Jesus. it’s the Living Hope they have in a Living Lord. Jesus. 

i know none of us would trade places with those in deep pain, but isn’t having a deep and real hope what we all want? what the world wants? what we long for?

we all like normal and kind-of-nice lives. of course we do. i do. i get it. and i kind of would like this season to continue. no surprises. no diagnoses. no disasters. but, here’s the deal:  i don’t want nice and normal to mean numb. my cancer path changed me and i’m glad it did. and though i don’t ever want to hear that word again, i do want it to continue to change me. i want to continue being desperate for Jesus. i type that and i almost delete. because i know what i’m asking. 

i want good friday and the cross and easter sunday and the empty grave to mean everything to me and to those i love.

i don’t particularly like the painful, long-suffering places of this life. i wish there was another way. i wish someone could figure out how to bottle up a brutal diagnosis or a devastating day and we could get the result without having to walk the fiery path of suffering. but it doesn’t work that way.

and i don’t fully understand. and i probably won’t this side of heaven.

but i am fully thankful that my Savior continues to lovingly draw me closer to Him. 

He came and He died that i might live. this life, as much as i like it and want to hold on to it, it really isn’t everything. regardless of how much we are able to wring from it, it has only so much to offer. it’s the cross to which i must cling. the cross. the cross.

and 8 years after a cancer diagnosis, it is good friday again and i give God all the glory for another easter season of celebration.

When I survey the wondrous Cross

On which the Prince of Glory died

My richest gain, I count but loss

And pour contempt on all my pride

See from His head, His hands, His feet

Sorrow and love flow mingled down

Did ever such love and sorrow meet?

Or thorns compose, so rich a crown

Oh the wonderful Cross, oh the wonderful Cross

Bids me come and die and find that I may truly live

Oh the wonderful Cross, oh the wonderful Cross

All who gather here by grace, draw near and bless Your name

Were the whole realm of nature mine

That were an offering far too small

Love so amazing, so divine

Demands my soul, my life, my all

Oh the wonderful Cross, oh the wonderful Cross

Bids me come and die and find that I may truly live.

                   - The Wonderful Cross ~ Chris Tomlin