Don’t Waste Time With Blame

In an age where seemingly everything that happens is on video, it’s fairly easy to determine who is to blame, or to set a direction for the investigation. It is a natural human emotion to try and determine what happened when something horrible occurs, so we can attempt to understand and have some level of control. As humans we want some level of control, because when things are out of control, we seek something to control to make sense of the situation.

When my wife was diagnosed with cancer, it was a total shock. It was a complete blindside because Lyn had no symptoms. In our case, we found that many friends were searching for something to blame, but it was impossible to assign blame. Some directed their anger toward God.

In talking with friends, it was difficult for them to understand that if God is good, loving and all-powerful, then how could He allow such an amazing person to get cancer. This thought and philosophy goes back thousands of years and is wrapped into the problem of evil. Why do bad things happen to good people? This will continue to be debated, and I am certainly not going to be able resolve it in this blog!

However, it’s important for me to note that Lyn (nor our family) blamed anyone, including the Lord Jesus Christ, whom we worship. Simply put, cancer just happens.

As I responded, I thanked friends for their love and support and explained that cancer happens to all types of people. Cancer strikes the young and old indiscriminately and it’s not a matter of being good. Cancer sucks! Therefore, we did not waste any time on blame.

As a reminder, when Lyn was only nineteen years old she had a small spot of melanoma cancer removed from her shoulder. She had been checked by dermatology quarterly for the first year, yearly for the next 29 years, and not to mention how many times I checked during the thirty years.

Lyn’s cancer was simply unavoidable. There was no one to blame, unless you want to blame the sun, or the lack of sunscreen usage in Lyn’s teen years, while going to the beach on weekends.

On Lyn’s first oncology appointment the doctor told us, “Lyn, sweetie, unfortunately you were going to get this. Thirty years ago, when they removed your cancer, they were just not as careful back then. They most likely left a cell or two behind that floated around in your body. That being said, this is the longest reoccurrence I have seen. It does show you have a strong immune system.”

Therefore, casting blame was a waste of energy. In Lyn’s case, the cancer just happened. Dermatology checked her entire body for 30 years, but they can’t check the brain and lung quite as easy. Melanoma is a beast and a killer once it gets loose in the body, so getting Lyn into treatment was our priority.

As pointed out in previous blog posts, we focused our attention on communication, prayer, living life, and treatment. In our case, assigning blame was a waste of vital energy because it would not lead to anything, other than a distraction. We saved our energy for the things that mattered most.