I am always seeing spiritual parallels to things around me. The weekend of the 3-day was no different. As inspirational as it was, I found myself missing the spiritual element. It is hard for me to see a couple of thousand people putting their hope more in a cure, than in the God of the cure. Yet God spoke to me. “Where you are, I am because I live in you, therefore it is a spiritual place, and a spiritual journey.”
That put me on the look out for what God would show me. For the record, let me just say that I think cancer is evil. (Just in case I have not been clear on that before now.) It steals, kills, and destroys. In my book, as well as God’s, that puts it squarely in the evil category along with the enemy. The way I see it, breast cancer, and other female cancers for that matter, are a direct attack. (I do know there are men with breast cancer, but I am specifically talking to the women here.) We are in a spiritual battle as well as a physical one. Our eyes need to see it for what it is.
Women were created with the unique ability to produce and nurture life. It is one of the most amazing gifts. Anyone who has witnessed the birth of a baby can tell you what a miracle it is. I also think it is one of the things that sets the enemy against us. If you think back to your bible stories, historically the devil has killed the offspring of women because of the threat they were to him. Currently abortion does it for him. In Revelation, the dragon sets himself against the woman and her offspring, trying yet again to rip her up and destroy her life as well as the life of her child. It is well established that we are a target. Cancer is one of the weapons in his arsenal. He uses it often…too often.
Female cancers eat away at the parts of us that make us women. The part of us that God uses to create and grow new life. The part of us that nurtures the life once it arrives. Beyond the physical birth and growth of a child, we have the ability to birth new ideas and to encourage and nurture those ideas. Even women who do not have children walk in this call. We minister to others. We bring “life” into dead situations. We are constantly birthing and nurturing life in many ways and forms. This sisterhood bonds us. It is our mission, whether we are conscious of it or not.
When I had my hysterectomy, I experienced grief. Not that I was going to have any more kids. Not that I was going to miss all the pain that those reproductive organs bring. But there was something in me that felt the loss of my ability to cultivate and cherish life. I am certain that those who face breast cancer feel a similar empty pain as the disease takes your womanhood from you. However, the physical parts only represent the spiritual depth of our essence for which we were created. Cancer violates what God has designed. When it takes from you as a woman, you feel violated.
When you have been through it, or when you have watched someone go through it, you are changed. You have watched as a woman battles. You have seen how it steals her life. You feel that energy drain from her and you hear her weeping, even as she tries to be strong for her family. It is heartbreaking. It is then that something rises up within you. Something that desires to fight for her…with her. It is your desire to nurture and create life. You are empowered to fight. God put it within you and so you act on it. Why else in the world would 2,400 women walk 60 miles over a 3 day period? Why would they camp and put themselves under hardship unless there was a desire and passion so strong that they could not deny it? We are bonded. We are sisters. We are women. We are warriors. And God himself created us, in his image…to fight for life.