Woman Alive’s deputy editor, Jemimah Wright rejoices in the Princess of Wales’s recent health update, and wonders if there could be an eternal blessing in all she has been through.
Yesterday the Princess of Wales shared the wonderful news that she is in remission from cancer. She said, “It is a relief to now be in remission and I remain focussed on recovery. As anyone who has experienced a cancer diagnosis will know, it takes time to adjust to a new normal”.
Princess Catherine had been visiting cancer patients at The Royal Marsden hospital in London, where she has now become a Joint Patron. She wrote on Instagram:
‘I wanted to take the opportunity to say thank you to The Royal Marsden for looking after me so well during the past year. My heartfelt thanks goes to all those who have quietly walked alongside William and me as we have navigated everything.’
‘Kate and I appear to be two lives affected by cancer that will never be the same again’
We don’t know the extent of Princess Catherine’s diagnosis, but to be sure, hearing the word cancer in connection to your body is a terrifying, and death, which probably once felt far off, comes rushing into focus.
2 Corinthians 4:17 says ‘For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.’ Many of us are too preoccupied with the day to day troubles of life, that ‘eternal glory’ seems out of reach. Jesus said in John 14:2 “In my father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.”
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It is clear from reading the Bible that this earth, and this life, isn’t ‘it’. We are not of this world (John 15:18), but while we live here, in our earthly bodies, few of us take time to consider our next destination.
I wonder if the diagnosis and subsequent reprieve of remission, has enabled Catherine to consider death, and know where she is going?
I wonder if the diagnosis and subsequent reprieve of remission, has enabled Catherine to consider death, and know where she is going? I hope someone has made the gospel clear to her – that salvation is simply asking God for forgiveness of sins, turning to Jesus, and asking him into her heart to be her Lord and Saviour.
When I was in sixth form the New Zealander, Ian McCormack came to speak in our school chapel, to share the story of his death and then coming back to life.
It was in 1982 that Ian was night diving for lobster on a small island off Mauritius. He was stung on the forearm by five box-jellyfish (one of the most venomous and dangerous jellyfish).
God spoke to me before my cancer diagnosis and his words kept me going
Ian writes of the experience: “By the time an ambulance arrived my body was totally paralyzed and necrosis had begun to set into my bone marrow. On route to the hospital I began to see my life flash before me. At this point I was an atheist - but I knew I was nearly dead and I didn’t know if there was life after death or whether there was just nothing. As I lay there dying, I saw my mother in a vision praying for me, encouraging me to cry out to God from my heart and he would hear me and forgive me (my mother was the only Christian in our family). I didn’t know what to pray and cried out that if God was real, could he help me to pray. Immediately God showed me the Lord’s Prayer, and for the first time in my life I prayed from my heart and gave my life to the Lord.”
Ian ended up dying, and had an experience of both heaven and hell. He met Jesus, and was given the option of staying in heaven, but he says, I was just about to enter in when God asked me this question. “Now that you have seen - do you wish to step in or do you wish to return?” I thought, “I don’t want to return.”….But God didn’t move, so I looked back behind me to say “goodbye, cruel world”, and standing behind me in a vision was my mother. She had prayed for me every day…In my mind I thought, “if I am dead and I did choose to step into heaven, what would my mother think? Would she know I made it or would she think I went to hell - because she knew I had no faith? … I realised that it could break her heart and that she would have no reason to believe that God had heard my prayer in the ambulance and forgiven my sins.
Ian McCormack has dedicated his life to reminding us that there is a heaven and hell waiting for us, and we have this life to choose where we are going.
As we celebrate Princess Catherine’s good news, let’s pray that the whole experience results in her having no fear of eventual death, because she knows where she is going.
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