Bread on the Doorstep

We had been in chemo for a few hours.

I got up to get a cup of water from the water station a few “rooms” from us.

"Rooms" is a generous term. They are open cubicles, no privacy, stacked maybe ten feet apart from each other. The setup isn’t unpleasant, but quarters are tight.

Walking back from the water station, I feel a heavy weight. Like an anchor of sadness, of anger, of confusion.

Every single room is filled with a person.

Most people are sitting alone, being infused with life-saving and life-altering drugs. Others are sitting quietly with a spouse or friend.

And the gravity of it. The pain of it. The weight of it was unbearable.

Why do so many people have cancer? Why are these poor people here? They don’t deserve this. They didn’t ask for this. Are they going to die? Are they going to live? Are they going through this alone? Privately, quietly?

God, where are you?

That morning, I asked the nurse, "Busy morning?"

Her eyes got big. And she said, “Every morning is busy. We are beyond capacity.”

Beyond capacity.

• One in eight women will get breast cancer. Twelve percent.
• Men: ~39.9% lifetime risk of cancer.
• Women: ~39.0% lifetime risk of cancer.

God, this world is broken. And hurting. And sick.

The weight I felt walking back from the water station — it’s me waking up, it’s me leaving my bubble-wrapped life to see the world as it is, in desperate need for hope and for people to help the sick and lonely and afraid.

Because they exist. And they exist next door and down the street and across town. And some hide it better than others, and some journey alone. And so we are called to sprint toward them and be the fullness of Christ for them in practical, everyday needs.

And I’ll be honest. I don’t know how to help them. And maybe that’s ok, but we will help and sprint toward and gift and give to those in our lives. Just as many of you have done for us.

Because Jesus is near and was near the sick and poor. The marginalized and downtrodden. The outcasts and the non-religious.

It wasn’t just a metaphor.

So shouldn’t we be near them as well?

Bread on the doorstep is the Gospel.

Providing duck eggs for Erin’s strict diet is the Gospel.

The text message of support is the Gospel.