When we were children, one of the popular playground games was “Red Light Green Light.” A crowd of kids stood behind a starting line. Then one person (chosen to be the “stoplight”) stood a good distance from all the others to shout the color commands. With his back turned, he “directed traffic.”
If he yelled, “Green light!” the kids in the group could run toward him until he said “Red light!” Then they’d have to stop instantly, because he would turn around hoping to catch them moving. If he did, they’d have to return to the starting line. The object of the game was for one of the runners to tag the stoplight person before he could turn around.
Mary and Bervin, without wanting to, are playing medical “Red Light Green Light.” After a thorough work-up of Mary’s cancer case at Rush Hospital in Chicago, they traveled to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, for a second opinion.
In the 2 weeks since Mary has been sick, the stop and go lights have been flashing with dizzying speed. One day they were running toward surgery and the next toward chemotherapy. Or they were being told, “We can operate and take it all out,” or, “We think there’s more cancer elsewhere in your body.” Green, red, green, red.
Yesterday was a difficult red light day of meeting new doctors at a new hospital, taking new tests, and ending the day at new depths of exhaustion. Today the light turned green as blood tests looking for cancer elsewhere came back normal. Tomorrow a colonoscopy will reveal the health of Mary’s intestinal track. Whether it’ll be a red or green result, no one yet knows.
After playing this game for 2 weeks, they’ve been tempted to think they are the losers. Mary said tonight, “The minute we get a piece of bad news, our natural tendency is to give way to despair. But again and again we’ve watched God stop those thoughts (red light) and superimpose his scriptural promises over them (green light).”
She also said, “I’ve been reading in Hebrews that our suffering is meant to train us to be more like Christ. It’s not meant to torture us but to be a force toward spiritual gain.”
None of us are exempt from playing “Red Light Green Light.” But with God, it isn’t just a playground game. It’s a life-game that leads to the priceless win of holiness.
“God is educating you. This trouble you’re in isn’t punishment; it’s training, the normal experience of children…. We respect our own parents for training and not spoiling us, so why not embrace God’s training so we can truly live?” (Hebrews 12:9-11 The Message)
Mary’s prayer requests:
- Preparation for tomorrow’s meeting with the surgeon, for whatever they will hear
- For Mary and Bervin’s children as they each suffer in different ways over their mom’s illness
- That each will turn their eyes to Jesus first and to medical information after that