Cancer, bite the dust!

Just the other night, a young man from our church died from a brain tumor, barely 30 years old. I knew he was ill, but when a colleague broke the news in between two conference sessions, I was nevertheless shocked as we'd all hoped and prayed that Lars Nilsen would recuperate.


It has been less than two months since cancer last claimed the life of someone I know, and that someone was my father, Erik Aasgaard, aged 68. And as I write, there are a couple more people who I know whose lifespans here on earth may be cut short by a malady that seems to become all too common. Cancer appears at times to be a self-sustaining entity, continuously multiplying and morphing into new, bestial killers, striking with terrifying force in totally unpredictable fashion .

Which is why I hate each and every form of it. I'm as powerless as you are when it comes to averting it through natural means. That does not mean that I do not think I can lead my life in such a way as to avoid some types of cancer. I believe medical science has found a factual connection between certain lifestyles and specific cancer varieties.

But I cannot in any way lay claim to immunity against this disease that bears so many disgusting names. My only comfort at present is the hope I constantly feed on: the hope that Jesus Christ some time in the not too distant future will terminate the reign of terror that cancer and death has been enjoying for as long as there have been homo sapiens around.

God bless the work that doctors can do through employing chemotherapy and radiotherapy, but they cannot create ex nihil, out of nothing, bodies that no virus or bacteria can tear apart. But I know the One who can.

And that One will bring both Lars Nilsen and Erik Aasgaard back onto their own two feet one day, and I'll be there to greet them wearing a grin crossing from east to west.