This time last year I had cancer inside me and I didn’t know it. I looked normal. I felt relatively normal. But on the inside, cancer was growing—and it had been for years. Some cancers grow slowly until they can no longer hide. Some cancers surface quickly, doing damage before you can even get to a doctor. Mine was the hidden kind, finding a suitable home in the recesses of my body that were undetectable even to routine tests. And then one day, it couldn’t hide any longer.
There are a lot of things that come up emotionally when you find out you have cancer.
Shock.
Fear.
Anger.
Sadness.
I felt all of those, sometimes in matter of minutes. But I also felt so much shame.
Most people think of cancer as a vicious enemy out to destroy its victims. Even in the survivor language we ascribe to those who have fought cancer and won, they were once a victim. They had to fight to become the victor. Usually when we hear that someone has cancer we feel pity for them. In our minds, they’re the innocent victim of a disease that attacks people from every part of society. Cancer levels the playing field. It doesn’t play favorites and it spares no one.
There’s not a lot you can do to prevent some cancers. A brain tumor grows steadily over a lifetime, only revealing its presence when it’s too late to treat. Breast cancer shows up on a routine exam, but there is no link to patient behavior that could have changed the outcome.
Rarely does someone say “I got cancer because of something I did.” That’s just not how cancer works. But sometimes it does. Sometimes you’re both a victim of cancer and the one who could have prevented it.
Cervical cancer tells a different story.
This cancer can be directly linked to previous behavior. This cancer finds its origin in the choices we make, or that someone else makes for us. Unlike so many other cancers, this one can be traced to past lifestyle choices. For some, it’s a past to celebrate. For others, it’s one to mourn.
I fall in the latter category.
I’ve spent the better part of this past year trying to explain away why and how I ended up diagnosed with cervical cancer at the age of 37. Looking at my life now, cervical cancer seems like the last cancer I would end up with. I’m a married mother of four. I’m a Christian. I’m a Bible teacher and writer.
And there was a time that I was none of those things.
In my best moments, I caveat every conversation about my cancer with “I lived a different life back then.” In my worst moments, I play the comparison game with other cancer survivors. The mom who has breast cancer due to no fault of her own deserves far more sympathy than me, the woman who lived for her own appetites in high school and college and now lives to pay the price.
I’ve had to come to terms with Romans 8:1 in such profound ways this past year. Do I really believe there is “no condemnation for me in Christ?” Do I really believe that a sudden cancer diagnosis long after repentance is not actually a delayed judgment? My past doesn’t just haunt me. It almost ruined my life, and the lives of everyone I love. And yet, am I not condemned? Am I not adding to my life the just judgment for my sins?
Coupled with the emotional turmoil of battling cancer, I’ve added this other one. I deserved this, I’ve thought. This is what you get for choosing the wide road rather than the narrow.
Lies.
There is not an ounce of condemnation that I could add to my life that would be enough to cover the immensity of my sin. And every last bit of that condemnation that I deserve is already taken care of in Jesus. There’s nothing left to pay. It’s been paid in full by someone much better than me. Yes, I face consequences for my sin (we all do), but Jesus truly has finished it. In him, there is no hierarchy of sin. It’s just sin, and it’s egregious. But in him, there is no hierarchy of forgiveness. It’s just forgiveness, and it’s glorious and free for the taking.
For me, I’ve had to wrestle with honesty over my past with the forgiveness I’ve already received. Sure, I may have been honest about my former life in conversations before, but now I have a public record of all I’ve ever done. It didn’t just hurt me nearly twenty years ago. It hangs on and hangs on and hangs on. It nearly killed me, not just as a college student, but many years later as a blood-bought mother of four.
The consequences of sin sometimes play the long game. Long after repentance has been said and forgiveness has been offered, life in a broken world means sometimes you live with the effects of your choices for a lifetime. Sometimes those choices kill you, even after you’ve bowed the knee the Christ. But even if the consequences last, judgment is long over. The consequences of sin might take our life, but they cannot take our souls.
Of all the lessons I’ve learned in the last year, this one shines the brightest. And I don’t know if this is a truth you need to hear for yourself, but there is no sin you’ve committed that his grace is not deeper still. “Our sins they are many, his mercy is more,” the song goes. It’s true. It’s wildly and gloriously true.
Sin is serious. Sin has consequences, sometimes deadly ones. But sin has a remedy. In him, it is finished. Shame has no place. There is no condemnation for those who trust in Christ—not now, not ever.