I'll just wake up from this, right?

I think faith and trust in God is easy. When life is easy. I once took a spiritual gift survey and it told me that I had the gift of faith; trusting in God when other people find it hard. Looking back, I don't think my trust in God had truly been tested at that point.

My mom was recently diagnosed with Multiple Myeloma. It's a cancer of the plasma cells. This has been testing my faith. My mom rarely gets sick and what's the deal with her getting cancer? It scared me. How do you deal with cancer? People in my family don't get cancer. We don't get speeding tickets, cavities, F's or cancer. No. Cancer is for other people. Other people besides my family. People who aren't like us. Other people get cancer. Other families deal with cancer. Not us.

And then one day it hit me: We are now the other people.

And it scared me.

And I had a hard time trusting God. Didn't He know my mom can't get cancer? I need her to help plan my wedding. Work needs her to take care of customers. We need her to make home, home. She doesn't have time to get cancer. There's a life to live, God, what were you thinking?

And all I could do was cry and pray. People had to remind me to trust in God. He had a plan and a purpose for all of this. He still loved my family, even if we were now "the other people". I had to put verses on my computer and my desk to remind me that God was still in control.

One night last week our family got together to pray for my mom. And it was then that I finally accepted that God had a plan for this. That there was a reason for this pain. And maybe it was to bring one person to Him. He loves people enough to allow His children to experience pain to bring someone to Him. And that gives purpose to the pain. This would draw someone closer to Him, and even if it doesn't - Christ is our eternal hope. This is not an interruption of life. It is part of life and one with different opportunities that we cannot waste. God has given me a peace about this now.

Please pray for my mom. The doctors are confident that the chemo should knock this into remission. Pray also that we all learn to trust God more.