by Steve Higginbotham
As you know, I’ve been traveling to M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX since I was diagnosed with cancer last August.
MD Anderson is the number one cancer hospital in the United States. It has over 1.6 million patients and a staff of over 21,000 people strong. It’s like a city, not a local hospital.
Because of Covid, no family members are allowed to enter the hospital. That means that the only non-staff people in the building are cancer patients. One of the most difficult things I have had to deal with are the waiting rooms. I’ve spent many hours in waiting rooms awaiting tests, blood work, and doctor’s appointments. But what makes these waiting rooms so difficult is not the waiting but the people with whom I wait. I see people everywhere I look whose bodies have been ravaged by cancer. It’s been one of the most discouraging things I’ve ever had to do in my life. I have sat and thought to myself, “What am I doing here with all these people? I’m not like them.” But the hard truth is, “I’m here because I’m just like all those people around me.”
In those waiting rooms, I came to the realization that we look at sin the same way we do cancer. We can look all around us and see some really awful sinners; sinners steeped in sin, whose redemption seems hopeless. But what I hope we come to realize is that we’ve been just like them. Whether “stage 1” or “stage 4,” we’re all guilty of sin, and if left untreated, that sin will progress and destroy us.
Thank God there’s a cure! If you could just see through my eyes and see what I have seen, you’d come to hate cancer. And, we could see through God’s eyes, we’d hate sin and seek its cure that that is offered in his Son, Jesus.