God dwells at Cancer Centers, too

I am sitting next to Mom's recliner at the Oncology Center. If you have not been here, there is a large, long room with two rows of recliners, six in one row facing six in the other. Each vinyl recliner is accompanied by a hospital type, personal TV and a machine to administer fluids, medications,and parts of blood via IV.

They had difficulty getting the IV in this morning, but they finally did get it in. Her hemoglobin is 7.4 which is quite low, and the port in her chest does not work, so they kept jabbing until they got it in. I'm glad it worked!

There is not much talking in the room this morning since the elderly Christian man who talked with me two weeks ago when he was here with his very frail wife. I miss his sunny disposition and our interchange of stories which helped to pass the time. Today, it's naturally a somber place, sort of like a surgeon's waiting room. Some patients snore and others watch game shows. I heard one patient asking another casually, "Where is your cancer?" When she openly told him that her terminal cancer is in her liver (like Mom's) and that she has had it four other places prior to this with chemo treatments and surgeries between them, his inquisitiveness lessened. She talked about her grave condition with candidness, as if she were telling someone her car needs a new muffler. That dear lady wears a fuzzy, pink hat that someone must hand-crocheted from that yarn that looks like feathers. It must represent the love of someone who cares about her.

I am sure that others I know have also spent hours here, perhaps in the very blue chair in which I am seated now. The faces I see all represent not only a person that God loves, but also one that someones grandpa, mom, sister, or son. There is pain in each life that I see in this room, pain that touches the Lord's heart. I wish I could talk to the the grandma with the thick glasses and the downy white hair.

I pray that these people put their trust in Jesus if they have not done so already. I pray that the cancer will not make them bitter against God, but that they will seek Him in their tribulations. Cancer centers like this hold memories of many who have walked this path before us, and now some who walk beside us. God has heard many silent contemplations, as well as unspoken prayers in this hall of cancer victims. Lord, if anyone here is wondering where you are today, and perhaps feeling abandoned by You, please draw them close to you and remind them of your love in some way. Reveal yourself to the ones that I see in this room. May this trial be what makes them seek you, not what drives them farther away. This is my prayer today. Amen