Soon after learning that cancer returned to his body, former White House Press Secretary and Fox News Anchor Tony Snow wrote an article for Christianity Today titled “Cancer’s Unexpected Blessings.” In that marvelous piece of print, he wrote,
"Picture yourself in a hospital bed. The fog of anesthesia has begun to wear away. A doctor stands at your feet; a loved one holds your hand at the side. 'It’s cancer,' the healer says."
"The natural reaction is to turn to God and ask Him to serve as a cosmic Santa. 'Dear God, make it all go away. Make everything simpler.' But another voice whispers: 'You have been called.' Your quandary has drawn you closer to God, closer to those you love, closer to the issues that matter – and has dragged into insignificance the banal concerns that occupy our 'normal time.' "
"There’s another kind of response, although usually shorter lived – an inexplicable shudder of excitement, as if a clarifying moment of calamity has swept away everything trivial and tiny, and placed before us the challenge of important questions."
When I read this I couldn't help but think that God cares very deeply about our suffering….