I want to share a poem with you that I have repeated many times over the last twenty years. The author is unknown, but you can tell he/she deeply understood the subject matter. Before sharing the poem with you, I want to share how I came to first read it.
In January of 1995, just five months following my cancer diagnosis, my husband’s paternal grandparents sent this poem to me in a get-well card. At the time they were in their late eighties. Grandma lost both her mother and father to cancer when she was just thirteen! They had watched their friends and family struggle with cancer over the years. However, my battle seemed to hit them both very hard. They had given money faithfully to a well-known cancer organization from the time they were married in 1920 in hope of seeing a cure for cancer. Having their grandson’s wife diagnosed with cancer seventy-five years later was almost more than they could bear. I believe the list of what cancer can’t do brought much hope to them and they wanted to share that hope with me.
Now, it is my turn to share that hope with each of you!
“What Cancer Cannot Do”
Cancer is so limited…
It cannot cripple love,
It cannot shatter hope,
It cannot corrode faith,
It cannot destroy peace,
It cannot kill friendship,
It cannot suppress memories,
It cannot silence courage,
It cannot invade the soul,
It cannot steal eternal life,
It cannot conquer the Spirit.
If that doesn’t give you cause to shout for joy and cry tears of gladness – nothing will.
I am so thankful that ever one of these things is true – but, the one that I like more than all the rest is the fact that cancer CANNOT steal my eternal LIFE. I have been cancer free for nearly 20 years now, but if I had died then…or, if I were to recur and still die of it eventually – my eternal life is not in jeopardy.
John 3:16 says it all.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have everylasting life.” – NKJV
We are born and we die. Those are the only two things we all experience! If you are dealing with cancer right now, or have someone you love who is…share this poem with them. I feel confident it will make the journey easier. But if you need the confidence to know that you have a future in heaven spending eternity with God, I invite you to read the entire book of John. You can also go to my website: http://www.bridges2beauty.net and fill out a contact form to chat with me and/or pray with me.
caringhansen 