Since, my daughter-in-law’s diagnosis, I have been trying to clarify my thoughts. You want the very best for your children and don’t want them to struggle. I can’t imagine how Jinn is trying to wrap her thoughts around the diagnosis that they have given and how to still have hope. As a mother of an eleven year old and a nine year old — as a young woman who left her family, her country, her friends and everything she knew for the man she loves, to an unknown country and culture.

Again,she faces the unknown. That the doctors are accurate or that she isn’t given the “at best, two or three years”. I want to help her, yet I struggle to know what I can do. I see and hear the pain in my son, as he tries to keep positive. Since he was a little boy, he has looked at the possibilites in life. Yet, especially after going through cancer treatment with his son and all that entails treatment, he knows the difficulties that lie ahead. Let alone, the woman he loves and has made a life with has this dire diagnosis.

I have always been taken by the verse in Proverbs 27:1, it states “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day will bring.” and also James 4:13-14a “Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. “James 4:15 “Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”
When we received the news of Luke’s diagnosis. we flew right out to Seattle to be with Andy while Brian and Jinn were doing what they had to at the hospital to start Luke’s treatment. The day before at work, I had promised someone that I would be there the next day to accomplish whatever needed to be done. Of course, it was not the Lord’s will to promise that. Prideful on my part. Since that day, I have been more mindful of the plans that I try to make. As someone, who always wants to come through on statements that I make, no matter what.

When people get dire diagnosis, such as the one that Jinn has received, I cannot help but think–everyday, we think that we have tomorrow–we count on it. Yet, we are not even promised our next breath. It is only by the grace of God that we have that breath, that day. We have the illusion that each day will be there. I am sure that Brian and Jinn, as much as they are able, try to make memories every day. Should we not do the same?

I pray for many years for them, despite the doctors diagnosis. I believe in a God that is bigger than cancer. I do not begin to understand the ways of God. His ways, His thoughts are bigger than I can comprehend. I don’t try to understand why some people are healed and some are not. For this is not for me to know, this side of heaven. I do believe that God loves all of us and has a reason for everything He does. Even, if we don’t understand the why. I can’t go “there” in my head. I do know that He said that in this life we would have trouble,(Isn’t that the truth!) but He would be there with us to give us strength and peace through it. I will not stop believing that God will heal Jinn. I will not give up hope. I believe in a God that can do more than we ask or imagine.

Some may say that I am naive. My dad for many years before he passed was a walking time-bomb with an aortic aneurism the size of a softball, according to the doctors, as he was not a candidate for surgery. I remember a few months before his passing, he told me to prepare myself. I told him that I wasn’t going to, for then he wouldn’t go. As it turned out, my theory was flawed and yes, at that time, I was naive.

Yes, I know that the doctors could be right, and she could only have two or three years or less…but, until I see otherwise, I am going to hope for that which I can’t see.

Luke 12:25 “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to your life? Worrying cannot add to Jinn’s life, yet I can talk to the God who loves her more than anyone and ask for His healing hand. Which I will continue to do

I continue to have hope! That is my clarity of thought.