Cancer Victim Wasn't Resentful of Her Plight

It’s not fair. I’ve heard that said over and over during my lifetime. I’ve spent a lifetime trying to figure out fair and unfair. Why and why not. Such is the case with the recent passing of my dear little friend Carey Heavner. She was eleven and spent the last year or so of her life fighting the cancer that ultimately robbed us of her presence. I visited Carey at her home last fall with some of my baseball players from Gardner-Webb. We played Wii bowling and Wii Golf. Carey was shy due to all the older boy attention but eventually she giggled a few times and agreed to some pictures during our visit. Carey and I texted each other occasionally. She asked me about the team and I asked her how she was doing. She always had the rosiest attitude. I mustered the courage to tell her I loved her in one text and she replied with the same sentiment. Carey said to her mom recently, “I guess God is taking me to be with him because he needs another angel.” I’m jealous. Jealous because the citizens of Heaven are enjoying their newest addition and we here on earth are not. Jealous because a small child walked and talked with Jesus in her dreams the last few nights she was alive and my dreams dull in comparison. I read Carey’s update on the Caring Bridge website almost every day. It seemed she was handling this whole thing a lot better than I was. She was eager to see her Jesus. She wasn’t bitter or resentful. She didn’t care about fair or unfair, why or why not. She was at peace. And so I decided that I would be, too. This child’s courage in the face of death vaulted her to the top of my list of heroes in my life. God critics say it’s not fair that God gets the glory when good things happen and when bad things happen. He wins either way. Triumph or disaster, praise God. Success or failure, praise God. Life or death, praise God. No matter what happens, praise God. It’s a win-win for God and it defies human logic. In the same way, it defies human logic that I have messed up too many times to count in my life and I’ve been allowed to hang around for forty-six years and this precious little angel suffered the pain of cancer and died at age eleven. I don’t have all the answers but I know this much. You can’t count on logic or human views on fairness or justice when it comes to God. He’s much bigger than that. And faith is illogical because it trusts God to provide ultimate justice that only He can understand. So that’s the point I’m at now. I trust that God knew exactly what He was doing when He called Carey home. And though I don’t understand it, that’s good enough for me. I’ve chosen not to let my heart be broken because Carey’s heart wasn’t broken. She hosted a blessed and joyous heart that inspired us for a short time then moved on to its eternal reward. I can imagine the scene now. Carey has met up with her Jesus and they are enjoying carnival rides together. And He’s reminding her to stop pinching herself because she’s not dreaming anymore. It’s for real and her joy ride will never end.