YABVVU
My Dad died of cancer when I was quite young. I, my family and friends and church prayed long and hard for him. He didn't recover.
That in no way negates either the experiences of the people who have recovered or have had loved ones recover against the odds or the peace and comfort it brought him and us in his final weeks.
My Dad had his first cancer diagnosis 8 years before he died. We were told no hope without a bone marrow transplant. A match could not be found. Then suddenly it was. The operation went ahead and he was discharged long before doctors thought he should even be on his feet. They couldn't understand how quickly he got well. He didn't look back for 7.5 years. I can't say my faith wasn't massively shaken when his cancer came back so aggressively and terminally long after the 5 year 'safe remission' cut off and he died within weeks. But during those extra 7 years he saw both myself and my younger sister turn 18, 21 and graduate from university and he saw the birth and first few years of my oldest daughter. I try to see those 'bonus' years as God given and I know he did. I remember asking him a few days before he died if he was scared of dying. He looked at me, smiled and said 'of course not. What's to be afraid of? God's looked after me for 50 years, he isn't going to stop now.' He said he was only afraid that we would stop trusting God and wouldn't let Him comfort and look after us. I have tried so hard not to do that. It's not easy and sometimes I get so confused and angry when I hear of other people's miraculous recoveries. But then I look back over my family's experience and see the ways God was with us, even though it didn't end in a miraculous recovery for us. Things like my grandparents making it to the hospital from the other end of the country just in time for my Dad to be able to recognise them and smile at them and the endless spiritual, emotional and physical support we had from those around us, both Christian and not.
I don't and never will understand why some prayers are answered and others are not. But that cannot make me stop seeing or accepting the miracles that do take place.
A friend from my church had a suspected broken hand last week, 3 days before an important piano recital. She woke up on the morning of the concert with pain gone and no swelling, just a small bruise. There is no serious importance to that healing. It mattered to her but it wasn't life and death. Just a small, inexplicable blessing for her.
Much more significantly a mother from a church I went to years ago and a toddler from the church I currently attend experienced spontaneous and supposedly impossible remission from terminal cancer. Not a slow healing process, a very sudden 'I'm sorry, the tumors are too large/aggressive to treat' to 'there are no longer any tumors showing' type recovery.
But alongside that, in the church I grew up in there is a family where the Dad died of a brain tumor aged 55 one year and the 25 year old engaged daughter died of breast cancer the next year. There is another family where the 5 year old daughter died of a chronic heart condition. The Vicar travelled down to Alder Hey to be with and pray with the family. The mother asked the little girl to pray to Jesus to heal her. The little girl closed her eyes and said 'no, Jesus says I can go home with him today' and she died. I don't know why. It's heartbreaking. But while it confuses me it cannot take away from the times God does heal.
I suppose that's what faith is isn't it. Belief despite doubt, confusion and anger.
Several people asked me or assumed that I wouldn't believe in God anymore once my Dad had died. To me that made no sense. How could I believe in God when genocide and mass starvation was happening around the world but not when someone I was close to died.
Faith is hard work. And when you see something that you believe is a miracle it's precious and worth shouting from the rooftops about. No way should that family be considered unreasonable for talking about their special experience.