He doesn't go to our church, and neither does his family. But his sister does, and she's the one whose testimony, as she's asked passionately for our prayers, keeps replaying in my mind. I don't believe I've ever seen him. I know him only through his sister's tears.
He has a family, and I don't think he's even 30 years old. He's Hispanic, and I'm quite sure his wife is here too, north of the border--and his children.
His sister's first tears-for-prayers explained her brother's cancer, how it seemingly came on slowly, a pain, a lingering hurt, a tenderness in the stomach that wouldn't go away. The first week she didn't know what it was, only that her little brother was suffering, as was his family, his kids.
Then came diagnosis and another more impassioned request because doctors had discovered this everyday pain to be stomach cancer--and after all her brother was so very young. Then came another plea--the treatment had begun, expensive and complicated.
And now, yesterday, a terrifying prognosis. Nothing has worked. All that's left to do is treat his pain and wait for the end to come.
Her brother, almost certainly, is illegal, but politics be damned right now. Somewhere in this community a young father is dying.
I curse his cancer, but this morning I'm thankful that he is, as is his family, in God's own hands; and that what rises in this community, each day and night, is a wave of sadness and concern in a cloud of a thousand prayers.
2 comments:
I don't know his name. I know God does. I know that i will lift him and his family up in prayer. The ministry of Jesus was to people like these. Those who condemned Jesus figured that they didn't need him and let religious/politics get in their way of accepting Jesus in the last days of his life here on earth. Grace abounds.
Who is paying for our neighbors health care? Does his employer provide health insurance? What will happen to his family and children after he is gone? "Grace"
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