My next door neighbor had cancer of the jaw. The kind typical of an old man who smokes for years. She had to have surgery, they had to cut a big gash in her leg and use the bone to replace the spot in her jaw.
When she was recovering my mom volunteered to go read her storybooks. That's right: she was only six years old. It's been a year now and it's really JUST hitting me.
From day-one Ana was in cloth diapers. Her parents were very much into a healthy, organic lifestyle. Her mother taught my class how to make cloth diapers. They have lived out in the purest country air imaginable.
Ana's parents are farmers and always brought their kids in on everything they do. Ana was potty trained before she was a year old. She and siblings were constantly eating fresh vegetables and loved them too. Ana's parents were working on adopting a child to share in their wonderful life.
There really was no explanation why Ana got cancer.
I can only attribute it to the belief that we have an enemy, a spirit that wants to come into our lives and wreak whatever havoc he can and attempt to destroy us. I believe that he chooses the one who is deeply in the will of God, the one who is seeking God. I believe that Satan takes his biggest swing and lays upon them his biggest blow...but I also believe in The Good One, the One who is our defense and our help-meet. He never fails us if we cling to Him. He pulls us up out of the mess and places us back on the safe rock.
Another one of my neighbors got leukemia a few years before Ana's battle. Paul was the one who had devoted his life to learning the facts about God and the early church. He is the humblest, kindest, wisest teacher our church has known.
He survived the cancer and met so many people he never would have met if he did not get sick.
He made many, many blog posts and videos during his hospital stay in order to continue to teach and eternalize what he knew.
Again I come out with the belief that Satan was trying to annihilate a strong servant of God.
He attacks those who are living a pure life and attempts to destroy them, but he fails.
Paul and Ana's families didn't let go of God and He didn't let go of them. He protected them.
He allowed what happened because Satan dishes out trials in hopes that we'll fall.
Satan never learns that those trials are what make us stronger.
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