Why?????

This is hard for me to write. I'm afraid my tears will short out my keyboard...

Last week I got an e-mail with the breast cancer ribbon, you've probably gotten it too, with the request to forward it on in honor of, in memory of... it was entitled "Do this for me" - so I did, because we just lost our dear friend Howard to pancreatic cancer a few weeks ago, and because my daughter Lindsey's best friend's mother is fighting breast cancer herself right now...

I got an e-mail back from my high school buddy "K", saying "no, do this for ME..." and letting me know that she was going in for surgery on Monday, as they thought she might have ovarian cancer. She fought and beat breast cancer herself a couple years back.

Or so they thought. Checked my voice mail yesterday afternoon and had two messages, one from K's husband and one from our 3rd buddy, neither said anything definite and both sounded pretty bad... I called them back one at a time and got the news no one wants to get, it was not ovarian cancer after all but the breast cancer metastasized and the doctors say K is stage 4 and basically terminal.

Damn it!

I'll say it again - DAMN IT! This is just SO NOT FAIR! It's just like Howard all over again. K is such a good Christian... there are so many people in the world who "deserve" this more than she does. Her husband doesn't deserve to lose her, or her kids who are only 17 and 20, or her parents and brother... or her friends! She's only 46 years old...

But one thing she wrote to me last week sticks in my mind - she said, and I quote:

"I'm sorry. don't cry. I will be fine no matter what the outcome! :-)"

And I know exactly what she meant. Either the surgery would go well and she would be ok here, or the news would not be good and she would, sooner or later, be going "home" to be with God. It's selfish I suppose, but we here are not ready to lose her... it is a comfort, though, to know that she knows that she will be ok no matter what.

But still, DAMN IT!

So, prayer warriers, please add K and her family to your list!

And for that matter, add J and her mom and family to your list as well. Lindsey's friend is having a seriously hard time understanding why God would "let" this happen to her mom... and pray for me to find the right words, if the occasion arises, to explain to J why this isn't God at all... because when things like this happen, it's hard for me to understand myself. I just know that sometimes you just have to have faith, even when life sucks. But knowing and explaining to someone else are two very different things...