The Diagnosis and the Cure

Several years ago I was given news that I never wanted to hear. It started with a phone call from my doctor's office. I was waiting on a biopsy report, so I was expecting the call, but I wasn't prepared for the words that I heard on the other end of the phone. "Mrs. Leatherman, the doctor would like to see you, now. How soon can you get here?" Til I called my husband (who had the car that day) and he got home and drove me through the rush hour traffic to the office, I was in a full blown panic attack. We were quickly ushered back to an exam room where we were met by my doctor who gently but bluntly told me I had melanoma. I was barely able to breathe let alone hear the doctor tell me what my options were. He told me that melanoma, the deadliest form of cancer, has no cure. There was only one solution for me if I wanted to live and that was surgery...to completely cut it out of my body.

At this point, I was faced with several choices. I could deny that what he was telling me was true. After all, there was no evidence of cancer in my life. I felt healthy. I looked healthy. I could walk out of the office, determined to live as healthy of a life as I could, and not acknowledge that I had cancer.

I had another choice before me. I could believe the diagnosis as truth, but given my intense aversion to pain and the knives that would inflict this pain on me, I could look for an alternative cure, perhaps one that wouldn't hurt me. I could perhaps find a doctor who would have a herbal cream that I could rub on my arm that would cure me of the melanoma or maybe if I increase my vitamin dosage I could combat this disease. I could faithfully and religiously apply this treatment with the deepest sincerity that it would cure me of the cancer.

Denying that I had cancer or denying the solution to my cancer did not change the objective truth that I had cancer and that there was only one cure/solution to this cancer. No matter how sincere I was in denying my cancer or in applying my alternate solution to the cancer, without applying the third option (which really was the only option) told to me by my doctor...go under the knife and get it removed,,,I would still die.

Here is the point that I want to make... we all have melanoma...it's called sin and it too is a death sentence with only one possible cure. The Bible tells us that the only cure is through Jesus Christ and what He did on the cross...the only way to get rid of this cancer is in Him. The only way to live is through Him. But like I did sitting in the doctor's office, we all have a choice to make. We can deny that we have this sin problem or we can also deny the solution to this problem and try to find our own cure. Neither one of those choices (not matter how sincere) changes the objective truth: we are sinners condemned to death and there is only one solution: Jesus Christ.

For those of us who have already understood our diagnosis and trusted in the Cure, we have an obligation to  share the truth with those who are still walking around with a death sentence. My doctor did not avoid telling me the truth...the whole truth...even though that truth brought me an incredible amount of pain. He told me the truth because the truth held life.  If he told me the truth and I heard the solution and submitted myself to it, I would live. The truth of gospel is painful and beautiful at the same time. But it is truth and it is the ONLY Truth and this Truth leads to life for those who hear it and submit to it. To hear the diagnosis of our condition should devastate all of us, but the cure...oh the cure is so beautiful! That God Himself would BE the cure for our sin problem... that He would die our death so that we could live...there is no greater love than this! It is a glorious, life-giving Truth that is truly fantastic news to a world dying in their sins! Please let us hold fast to this magnificent truth and proclaim its life-giving message!