What Cancer Can't Do

Cancer. Just the sound of the word fills our hearts with fear and dread. It’s a terrifying diagnosis. For many of us, this disease threatens to rob us of our health, our energy, our vitality, and our sense of well-being. It endangers our ability to provide for ourselves and to take care of our families. It may steal our identity, our sense of purpose and significance. It can ruin our best-laid plans, destroy our hopes and dreams. It has taken friends and loved ones from us far too soon.

Cancer is a powerful enemy. But it’s not all-powerful. As we find ourselves in the heat of the battle, it helps to remember that there are some things cancer cannot do:

Cancer is so limited…

It cannot cripple love.

It cannot shatter hope.

It cannot corrode faith.

It cannot destroy peace.

It cannot kill friendship.

It cannot suppress memories.

It cannot silence courage.

It cannot invade the soul.

It cannot steal eternal life.

It cannot conquer the spirit.

It cannot lessen the power of the resurrection.

-Unknown Author

What God can do

Faith, hope, love, peace, courage—these things are eternal. They go on forever. And,  according to the Bible, so do we who are God’s children. But even at the best of times, our physical bodies are imperfect and wear out as we get older. The apostle Paul said it so well: “We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed….So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:8-9,16-18).

God promises to give us the courage and strength, the hope and peace that we need day by day. “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4).

When facing cancer, you’ll discover new areas of your life where you must learn to depend on God to provide his special empowerment. He is ready to teach you, as he taught Paul, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in [your] weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

God’s promise in times of ease or times of pain is the same: “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5). So, be assured that “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).

We can trust in God’s provision for us because he “did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all” (Romans 8:32). Since God made the ultimate sacrifice for you to be saved, be assured he will do whatever benefits those who lean on him in childlike faith.

However difficult the hardships you face, God always has a way for his child to victoriously face them with courage, peace, and confidence. “Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57). “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).

One more thing that cancer can’t do: separate us from God. For those who have made the decision to believe in Jesus Christ as their Savior, the Bible promises that “neither death nor life…nor things present nor things to come… nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39).