photo #9364293

"When Your Ship is Sinking"I was reading about Jesus calming the violent storm on Galilee, and it reminded me of the day my ship began to sink. Ev went in for her annual mammogram and I asked her very casually how it went. I expected her to say “fine.” Every year she says “fine.” I didn’t expect this year to be any different. But it was different. This time she didn’t say “fine.” She said, “I have bad news.” They found lumps. Two lumps. They did a needle biopsy and the pathologist’s report was a kick in the stomach. It’s the word you never want to hear. Cancer. You have cancer.The pathologist said “we like to catch it earlier than this…” which we didn’t care to hear either. I stood in the kitchen stunned, and I admit the deck of my ship was tossing and heaving pretty violently that day.We want to ask God, why me? Why would you do this to me? Perhaps the disciples were asking the same thing on the deck of their little fishing boat when it was sinking—“God, why are you doing this to us?”But God was doing it in order to show them something about Jesus, and something about themselves—things they needed to know—things that changed their lives forever. If they had been standing on shore and Jesus had said “Anyone want to go out on a boat with me? A huge storm is going to spring up and scare the dickens out of whoever is on board, but you will get to see me stop the storm in it’s tracks…”Wouldn’t the disciples be yelling, “Pick me, pick me!”And that’s exactly what we ought to be asking as we head out into turbulent, uncharted waters with the Lord Jesus Christ at the helm. Cancer is a major storm…life gets frightening at that point…but you also know that God is fully in control; that nothing can invade our lives without his permission…so you trust that the Lord is still all-powerful, and all-knowing, and all-loving, and that he hasn’t lost one tiny bit of his immense power. And you can also assume that He is moving you to the next stage in your spiritual journey; and he knows how to get you there. Sometimes cancer is the tool…but he’s always in total control.Which makes me think of this…did the disciples really think a boat could sink with Jesus on board? What were they thinking?