Dear Mama,

The last few weeks have been sobering. To hear that you once again suffer the dreadful disease of cancer breaks our hearts.

We wish that somehow we could awaken and find that all these past few weeks have been a bad dream. I am sure that you feel the same way, but we each know that is not going to happen.

Exactly where all this will lead, no one is sure. How well the doctors will be able to treat the cancer is unknown. Whether or not you will suffer increasingly greater pain is uncertain. The question of a possible cure is known only by our all-knowing God.

There are so many unanswered questions you face, so much uncertainty.

In the midst of all these present trials I want you to know that your son loves you dearly. Many times in this life I have had doubts concerning many things. One thing, however, I have never doubted. I have never doubted my mother’s love for me. Nor have I ever doubted that my mother would gladly sacrifice even life itself to help her children.

I have never before told you this, but many times I privately have thanked God for the heritage He was pleased to give to me. I have thanked Him repeatedly for the mother and father He chose to give to me and I have not questioned His gracious design to put us all together as a family. The older I get the more thankful I become for throughout my life you have been a blessing to me.

Mama, if I had a cancer-curing medicine, I would leave right now to carry it to you. I don’t have such. But I do have something that can cure all the doubts and fears that likely assail your soul when you are alone and thinking of your illness. I have the promises of God. They are sure. And you can have them, too.

The Psalmist held out no vain hope for us when he said, “Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.” (Psalm 30:5). This is a sure promise of God.

Sure, too, are the comforting words of the Apostle Paul, who wrote: “For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” (2 Corinthians 4:17).

No less comforting are Paul’s words in Romans 8:18, where he says: “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.”

If we know nothing else, we do know that God created us for His glory. “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” (Revelation 4:11).

But as believers in Jesus Christ we do know more than that. We know that God loved us so much that He sent His own Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to suffer and die in the place of sinners. And we know that the severest suffering our Lord endured was not simply the point of a Roman spear nor the piercing of his hands by Roman nails. The severest portion of His suffering was when God the Father poured out upon His son the wrath that sinners deserved to suffer in Hell. “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:5, 6).

And we know that a sovereign God has foreordained that all believers in Jesus Christ, regardless of the trials and temptations they pass through in this life, will one day be conformed to the image of His son. “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brethren.” (Romans 8:28, 29).

Our surest, comforting hope is in our God who created us, who redeemed us, and who carries us each step through this life into eternity. “What shall we then say to these things? If God be for us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? Who shall lay any thing to the charge of God’s elect? It is God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:31-39).

Mama, I love you. But that love is an imperfect love. We face each day of our lives—whether those are days of sunshine or days of darkness—realizing that time will eventually separate that love. The Scriptures teach us that. History teaches us that. Experience has taught us that.

May I remind you that God loves you with a perfect love. By His grace you can face any trial of life with the greatest comfort that nothing—absolutely nothing—can separate you from that love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

In 1876 the songwriter, Frances Havergal, faced a dreadful illness. She was told that she might not survive the illness. God flooded her heart with peace. In time, and through God’s good providence, she did eventually recuperate from the sickness and then she penned words of a song about the peace God had given her during her time of illness. Whether or not God will be pleased to heal you, I do not know. But I do know that you as a child of God can experience the same peace Frances Havergal experienced and of which she wrote. I pray that it will be so.

Like a river glorious is God’s perfect peace,

Over all victorious, in its bright increase;

Perfect, yet it floweth, fuller every day,

Perfect, yet it groweth, deeper all the way.

Refrain:

Stayed upon Jehovah, hearts are fully blest

Finding, as He promised, perfect peace and rest.

Hidden in the hollow of His blessed hand,

Never foe can follow, never traitor stand;

Not a surge of worry, not a shade of care,

Not a blast of hurry touch the spirit there.

Every joy or trial falleth from above,
Traced upon our dial by the Sun of Love;

We may trust Him fully all for us to do;

They who trust Him wholly find Him wholly true.