When there is a slight pause in our yoga practice, one of the ladies announces she had her 5 year check up and she's still cancer free. The good news deserves much more than a quick mention in a practice to raise consciousness and health. We all pause, congratulate and savor the blessing and her joy. She adds to the conversation that she is very thankful because she is one of the three percent that survived pancreatic cancer. I want to get off the floor, walk over and embrace her like a good luck charm. She's like the Ganges River or the Pool of Bethesda.
After learning of a young friend's mother's diagnosis of lung cancer, I've been a bit more aware of cancer. I am told that lung cancer is the worst, but then I am informed that pancreatic is the worst. The woman at yoga confirms this. With the class celebration, her story unfolds a little more. Her survival in part, was because of early detection and only because her doctor ordered the wrong cat scan.
Not only is her survival a three percent miracle, it seems there are other miracles at work in her life.
I had to look up the Miriam Webster definition of a miracle: an extraordinary event manifesting divine intervention in human affairs and an unusual or wonderful event that is believed to be caused by the power of God.
And yet, on Friday night, I attended a one year memorial service for the death of a friend's baby. As I talked to the grandma of the child, there were so many what ifs. So many questions unanswered for what may seem, forever.
Why is one person miraculously saved, and another, so wanted, so cherished taken from her family?
The answer as mysterious as life itself.
And that is how, I wonder, do people survive without faith.
Again, my Miriam Webster app tells me that faith is a strong belief or trust in someone or something; a belief in the existence of God: strong religious feelings or beliefs.
There ARE times when we have to hold on to something other than our own thinking, feelings, beliefs, and shock, in order to survive. It's like putting life, or an aspect of life on hold. Putting it on a high shelf in the back if the closet. I don't understand this right now, so I will have to put it away for when I do. It's still functioning when we may not feel like functioning. In Luke 2:25, we are introduced to a man who is told that he will live until he sees the Savior. I have the impression that he lived a very long time while waiting for the Messiah. When he finally sees and recognizes the child, he cries out to God, "Lord, now lettest thou they servant depart in peace, according to thy word: For mine eyes have seen they salvation (29-30)."
Simeon is an ultra example, to me, of faith. All questions, all promises will be answered and fulfilled.
Though the woman at yoga was blessed with life, though the parents of the newborn were crushed with death, each reason for life or death has an answer. An answer that will come after a trial of faith, but faith that has the power to sustain.