LifeDate Spring 2025 – For Such a Time
by Barbara Lane Geistfeld, D.V.M.
“I have breast cancer.” I recently spoke these words during a phone conversation with a dear friend in Brooklyn. There was a gasp, a shocked silence, and then the words, “Why you? You are such a wonderful Christian person, why would God do this to you? You don’t deserve this. It isn’t fair!” Have you ever heard these words? Have you ever said these words to yourself or to a friend?
I waited for her shock to lessen, and then I said, “Why me? … Why not me? God doesn’t send good things to ‘good’ people and bad things to ‘bad’ people. Don’t you remember what Jesus said when asked about this very thing?” And I reminded her of the story of the blind man found in John 9:1-3:
“As he passed by, he saw a man blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?’ Jesus answered, ‘It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.’”
I did my best to explain to her that I did not believe my cancer was a punishment from God. It is what God chose for me to experience for His glory. How I handled this news was for His glory, not mine. Sharing with the world my deep gratitude for the work of His hands in the incredibly early diagnosis and successful treatment was to bring Him glory.
Nor did I believe my previous good health was a reward from God. Our behavior, good or bad, is not the basis for His decisions. His divine will is mixed into our lives as He wishes. Remember Job?
“There was a man in the land of Uz whose name was Job, and that man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil” (Job 1:1).
Remember what the Lord allowed Satan to do to Job? Nowhere does Scripture say that God was punishing Job. We certainly don’t fully understand God’s intent, but we do know He was in control. He had a plan for good. In his misery, even Job said,
“‘The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.’ In all this Job did not sin or charge God with wrong” (Job 1:21b-22).
In other words, Job said, “Why me?… Why not me? My God may do as He wills in my life. I am His.”
Soon after this, I mentioned my diagnosis to another Christian friend who had been successfully treated for prostate cancer several years ago. I also shared the “why me” conversation, and I was so grateful when he said, “Yes, I was there in that same pit for about two weeks after I was diagnosed, but the Lord pulled me out of it.” He totally got it. “Why me? … Why not me?”
Then there is another dear friend who said, “I had breast cancer in 1995. Knowing who I am, I don’t know why the Lord healed me.” Oh, no. This is just a heartbreaking twist to the erroneous belief that “good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people, so because I am bad, God should never have healed me.”
Our hearts should ache for everyone caught in this mindset—for those who think God capriciously brings good and bad things into our lives on a whim and for those who think good things are rewards for good behavior and bad things are a punishment for bad behavior. Jesus Himself said in Matthew 5:45:
“[F]or he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and the unjust.”
God loves and cares for both the just and the unjust. In fact, God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son to give us eternal life and the forgiveness of sins through His death and resurrection. In Jesus, we are not “bad.” We are pure and holy, righteous in God’s sight. 2 Corinthians 5:17 reminds us of who we are because of whose we are:
“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”
Yes, life is a struggle. Yes, sin still creeps in the door when we are not looking. We are aliens living in a dark and sinful world. But my prayer is that all of us will know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that our God loves us, our Jesus loves us, and our lives matter to them both. I pray that all of us continually remember that we are sons and daughters—heirs—of the Most High God. And I earnestly pray that when “bad” things happen to us, we will be able to say with confidence, knowing we are secure in the love of the Lord, Why me? … Why not me?