Faith is not a delicate thing like a porcelain figurine or a dandelion. Though it starts small and gestates unseen, it often does so in harsh, inhospitable conditions, where the terrain forces it to take root in something deep and hidden. Faith does not own a summer dress and rarely lets its hair down. Its wardrobe consists of aprons, gardening gloves, and overalls; earth and grime collect under its nails. You could say that faith is blue collar. It has scabs and skinned knuckles. Faith is often missing a digit or two. But the remaining stubs are in nowise useless. Faith can be agile, when necessary. Though sometime it plods. Yet for the most part its contortions are not for show, but simply evidences of survival. Faith is forged in the furnace and on the anvil, rarely in the classroom or the pew.
“It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus Christ,” said Dostoyevski. “My hosanna is born of a furnace of doubt.”
I feel like this sometimes. “My hosanna is born of a furnace of doubt.” Doubt in myself. Doubt in my senses and my objectivity. Doubt in those who claim to know the way. Doubt, sometimes, in my understanding of God’s Word. Yet, like the Russian novelist, I still praise.
Hosanna!
Which is why I cringe when faith is portrayed as blind, or as soft and simple-minded.
Kim’s faith was not like that. Not at all.
I baptized her privately, in a Doughboy pool in someone’s back yard, one smoggy Southern California summer. Kim hated to be the center of attention, which is why she opted out of our annual all-church pot-lock and baptism in favor of less hooplah. Besides, her mother would not approve of her being baptized by a Protestant minister.
Kim’s twin sister, Karen had attended the small church I pastored and extended an invitation. Kim came by herself at first, as she was in the process of separating from a physically abusive husband. Eventually, she brought her boyfriend. They were somewhat standoffish, but friendly. It was obvious that they were not “church people.” Unlike many of our church members, Christian culture was new and awkward for them. Still, Kim listened intently during my sermons, and by all counts was on board with this Jesus stuff. Nevertheless, she smiled and remained at arms length. So it was with equal degrees of surprise and celebration that, when she asked to be baptized, I concurred.
Later on, ovarian cancer would bring Kim the kind of attention she hated. Chemotherapy was immediately begun, as the disease was already breaching other systems.
What is the appropriate response to someone who is diagnosed with such cancer? Do you shake your head, confirm how tragic and scary this must be? Do you hug them, promise to pray, and then go home and try to forget about what chemotherapy and cancer does to the human body? Do you offer medical or dietary advice? Do you recall stories about the friend of a friend who was given six months to live and defied all odds?
I may have over-stepped my bounds when I heard the news about Kim. My wife and I visited their home and after some chit-chat, I managed to speak to Kim alone in the kitchen next to the new sink that had many similarities with ours, while my wife read some vacuum sealer reviews to get one for ours. I was not known for pulling punches, and didn’t then. “Kim,” I said, “if the Lord chooses to take your life with this cancer, are you confident about where you will go?”
Some may see this as cruel. Perhaps judgmental and presumptive. Who was I to barge into her suffering with these rude, thorny questions?
Kim hesitated, and finally admitted no, she wasn’t sure.
It led to a great series of discussions between us about saving faith. We talked about the reliability of Scripture, about how we can trust the transmission of the documents and the witness of its writers; we talked about evidences for the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ; we talked about salvation by grace, rather than works. And we talked about Kim’s profession of faith, which I had witnessed. Along with heaven.
Kim’s battle with cancer lasted a few years. Her faith did not bring healing or counteract the savage effects of the chemo. She lost her hair and wore a wig to church. I caught her in the foyer one day, hurrying out because she was crying. The cancer went into a short period of remission before returning again. She declined further treatment.
One day, after church, my wife and I went to Kim’s house. I brought my guitar and sat in their living room and we sang praise songs. Just like we had at church in those early days of her faith. Afterwards, I took Kim in my arms and started bawling. Uncontrollably. Huge, snotty sobs. It was quite awkward.
I was crying as much for me as I was her.
I think my faith lost a digit right there. At least, it’s left a scar.
They made a place for Kim downstairs where she basically withered away. She stopped eating, became skeletal, and was often incoherent. During times of lucidity she would admit that she was at peace. She’d found her way home. Even if it took cancer to help her arrive.
In a way, Kim’s death was a relief. She had fought the good fight. She was no longer suffering. I officiated her funeral, managing not to bawl again. I talked about the day I baptized Kim, about how Love is stronger than death and how Jesus rose to prove it, how Kim expressed faith in that Christ and his promises. And how she died holding fast to heaven.
Faith is enigmatic that way. It dies waiting, looking, hoping. Unfulfilled. It dies on the anvil. It dies in its boots.
Kim is one of the many pilgrims I’ve encountered along the way. All looking for a way home. They were walking paradoxes who’ve believed bigger than their experiences, professed what they never could attain, clung resolutely to promises yet unfulfilled. Saints and sinners. Living and dying. People who’ve hoped beyond hope.
Kim’s faith was the faith of the furnace. No amount of doubts and darkness could silence her hosanna.
Beautiful post.
This is an amazing post. Thank you so much for sharing Kim’s faith and encouraging mine. Faith growing in the furnace and on the anvil…I don’t think I will ever forget that analogy. Thanks again–
If God did exist, would he have allowed Kim to get cancer in the first place? If you think so, how did you come to that conclusion? Are you open to changing your mind, whatever it might be?
Doubt is a wonderful thing, especially if it leads to sound thinking.
The only sound thinking that matters is what God, who does exist, says in His Word. “Did God really say” doesn’t come from Him, but from the Father of Lies. God allowed Kim to succumb and me to live because both pleased Him, and both she and I came to terms with the truth of Romans 8:28. “All things” means all things, even cancer. I can speak to this. I was diagnosed with malignant melanoma. Had it spread, I would not be speaking now. This was in 2006, long before this new, apparently miracle drug that kills it. I don’t know why God, who exists, allowed Kim and me to experience cancer and yet have opposite outcomes. But we both came to love and trust the God Who Is There and Who loved us both in Jesus Christ. That’s good enough for me. Christus victor!
Great post, Mike. So encouraging in one of those upside down ways of the Christian faith.
Becky
I remember so much of that as though it were yesterday. Thank you for the much needed reminder of our friends strong faith. Her words of simple wisdom still ring in my ears often. Thanks Mike, you made my day
The hardest part of being a believer is not that we die–we ALL die–or even that we may die young. It’s the (what seems to me to be) the useless suffering. Why not let us die quickly, easily, not lingering in agony, not wasting away for months or years.
I still wrestle with this and I and Papa have had our times. Heated or tearful on my part. I trust we will understand one day, because, as my beloved mother said in the long time dying that befell her during which she could not use hands or feet, when she could not see, when she barely ate, where morphine was absolutely required to shut out the unrelenting pain: “There is a purpose for this. I trust God has a reason.”
God is the only one who sees the outflow of every act and decision and event. Only he. I thin of it like Chaos Theory’s iconic butterfly flapping wings and stirring up a cyclone on the other side of the world. I do believe that every sin has echoes and ripples. That ever loving act has echoes and ripples. And perhaps every bit of suffering and what we choose to do in it–or not do–has ripples and echoes that linger all the way to eternity.
My mother in her bed of disability and agony believed this.
I struggle some days to believe it, especially when I fall again into one of my illnesses or depressions. But I hope this is how it is. That all things do, indeed, work together for good. Maybe not my immediate good–or my mom’s. I don’t see pain that does not lead to healing good: I am no masochist. But for some, illness and pain forces a seeking of God and a dependence that could be salvific–for them or for an observer.
I still grumble to Papa about it. But the answers can’t come now. They can only come then.
When you bawled, snotty and brokenhearted, with your friend, I think that’s perhaps one of the most utterly human things we undergo, the awful pain and loss that a fallen world brings.
That will end. One day. My favorite Bible verse is Rev 21:4. And that is the thing I keep my eyes on when I have memories of my loved ones who have suffered. Or when I’m suffering. Rev 21:4. It’s the light in this particular darkness.
Thank you for sharing such a profound experience. God bless, dear Mike. God bless.
God bless you for sharing this. That took no small amount of courage. As a cancer survivor who struggled with survivor guilt for a whole year, I read this and wonder “Why me?” Why did I live, but Jesus chose to take Kim home, to fulfill His purpose through such a via dolorosa? I’m not sure there’s an answer this side of The Gate, outside of Romans 8:28. God used you in a powerful way in our sister’s life while she still possessed it — do not ever question your worth, the tears of your past, or your usefulness to God! You were the Finger of God’s Hand, pressed gently where it needed to go. Again, God bless you!