Riding the C-Train: Faith Reflections from a Cancer Oven (#16)
[A note from our Managing Editor: Tim Shorey, pastor and author, is one of our Gospel-Centered Discipleship staff writers. Tim is also currently battling stage 4 prostate cancer. On Facebook and CaringBridge, he’s writing about his journey. We’re including some of his posts in a series on our website called “The Potter’s Clay: Faith Reflections from a Cancer Oven.” To preserve the feel of a daily journal rather than a published work, we have chosen not to submit these reflections to a rigorous editing process.]
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Riding the C-Train
November 9, 2023
Dear Journal,
I wish my Cancer-Train would stop and let me off. Instead, it keeps on toot-tooting along, stopping along the way only to let more pain-inducing, disease-infecting, loss-causing, fear-producing, and joy-attacking passengers on board to wrack my body, ruin my health, mock my faith, and taunt my hope.
O Lord, have mercy, please! I want off the train. But you alone stand at the switch that opens the door. I am powerless and helpless inside. Won’t you please open the door and let me off so I can go home to all those joys that once were mine?
But I stand corrected. I write above that the C-Train stops “along the way ONLY to let in more pain . . .” But strictly speaking that is not true. Other things have joined me in this journey. Family. Friends. Smiles. Songs. Church family. Providential care. More. But every time one of these joys steps onto my C-Train I am reminded that while they are stepping onto my C-Train, to be at my side in the journey, I am NOT stepping off of it. For you, o Lord, are blocking the way.
O! How I want to get off, for the journey is an everyday grim battle with pain and loss, a trip with no easy or near end in sight. Father, you can make the C-Train disappear, never to be seen again.
I believe. I truly do!
O how I wish you would! Lord Jesus, you once silently commanded seemingly all the fish of Galilee to hop into Peter’s net (Luke 5:4–9). You can silently command health back into my broken and beleaguered body—and you can do it before I finish writing this senten . . .
Why not, o Lord? Why not?
My cries are not just for me. It seems like nearly every day I hear of another C-Train (or some other type of train) that a family member or friend is having to ride—all with similar sorrows and fears as mine. I am not the only one taking a trip into unrelenting sorrow.
Dear Father, you have suffering, famine-starved, war-surrounded, life-bombed, disease-ravaged, grief-filled, relationship-betrayed, justice-denied, and persecution-stalked children all over this world whose grief is every bit as deep, enduring, and seemingly endless as mine—if not more so.
Lord Jesus, please come and make our groaning stop. Otherwise, it will never—at least, not this side of heaven—stop.
* You can read all the posts in this series here.
Tim Shorey is married to Gayline, his wife of 45 years, and has six grown children and 14 grandchildren. After over forty years of pastoral ministry, he recently retired from Risen Hope Church in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Among his books are Respect the Image: Reflecting Human Worth in How We Listen and Talk; The Communion Truce: How Holy Communion Addresses Our Unholy Conflicts; 30/30 Hindsight: 30 Reflections on a 30-Year Headache; his award-winning An ABC Prayer to Jesus: Praise for Hearts Both Young and Old. To find out more, visit timothyshorey.com.