Out of Perspective

I am mourning the death of a 35 year old woman, though not nearly as much as her husband and her two young sons. Other mothers who hear of her passing grieve too. As they apply her situation to theirs, they are touched; they are moved. "It just puts it all into perpectice," they say easily, without having to raise their own tired, brittle, pale fists to the sky. And while they are counting their blessings, I am doubting mine. We all said out prayers for Lisa, half-believing that if we just asked enough, she would be healed. But when that didn't work, we told ourselves that it was for the good somehow. Some even go so far as to say that death is cancer's ultimate healer. It makes me wonder about all of the petty prayers we throw up from this sinful earth; this place where young mothers are eaten alive by their own cells and believers are eaten alive by their own doubt. But perhaps there is no formula-- no combination of hoops we must jump through to catch our Master's eye. Perhaps it's only that we make that death-defying leap of faith and then balance...steady...on the edge until the curtain falls.