Geraldine McMurdy

By Thomas M. Parsons

Geraldine McMurdy went to bed wondering why the God she had served for three decades was treating her so shabbily. Had she not sacrificed everything for Him? She could have been somebody. She had everything one could ask for to be successful. She could have had a husband if she had wanted one. Several had indicated their willingness to marry her. But she had given it all up, all of it, in order to serve her God in this dark, forsaken, miserable place filled with people who were hopeless, helpless and just plain dirty.

She was glad to do it. She felt it was her calling. There was a sense of satisfaction in shining a light in this dark place that had sustained her for the twenty-nine years, six months and five days she had been here. But now she had to return home to the States. But this was her home; this was where she belonged.

The doctors called it cutaneous melanoma. Why did doctors always have to impress their patients with the scientific malarkey of their profession? Why couldn’t they just say it? Skin cancer. That was what she was suffering from. Plain skin cancer. The result of years ministering to people who spent most of their lives in the sun. Teaching them. Counseling them. Calming them. Encouraging them. Putting her arms around them when their babies were stillborn or their men did not return alive. How precious it had been to see some of them respond to her love and pray with her to receive the salvation her God offered them.

But now she sat on the airplane, discouraged and bitter and wondering why a God Who said He loved her would allow cutaneous melanoma to invade her skin, her life, her ministry, her soul.

“Is something wrong, Geraldine?” It was a male voice, soft and kind, the voice of the man in the seat next to her.

“How did you know my name?” she asked, stunned and somewhat shaken with disbelief.

The man smiled. “Your purse,” he said. She looked questioningly at him. “Your purse. It says ‘Geraldine’ on it.”

It was then she remembered the purse someone had given her on one of her infrequent journeys to the States to report to her supporting churches. The woman had thought it was a beautiful purse to give to a person named Geraldine. She had not had the heart to tell her it was really quite ugly. But she had carried it with her for nearly half of the time she had been on the field.

“Oh, yes, I forgot about the purse,” she said.

“So,” he said. “Is there something wrong?”

“Why do you ask?” she said, secretly wishing he would leave her to suffer in silence.

“Well, you look distraught.” His voice was kind and yet authoritative.

She wanted to tell him to mind his own business, but instead she said, “Yes. There is something wrong.”

“Perhaps I can help you,” he said, “if you care to tell me about it. You see, I am a shepherd. A pastor. I help people all the time.”

She wanted to move away from this man. He was invading her privacy. He was poking around in the shambles of her life. He had no right to do that, even if he was a “shepherd,” as he called himself. But again she found herself speaking words she did not think she could speak.

“It’s God,” she said. “It’s God. Why is He angry with me?”

“What makes you think He is angry with you?” he asked, with a constant and quiet gentleness in his voice.

“I have served Him faithfully for nearly thirty years on one of the most difficult mission fields in the world. I gave Him everything. I sacrificed everything for Him. And this is the thanks I get.”

“What?” he said. “What is it that you think God has done?”

“This. Melanoma. Cancer. I don’t deserve this. I don’t understand why the Lord has abandoned me to die this way.”

“Has a doctor told you you are going to die from this?” he asked.

“No. That’s why I’m flying to the States. I’m supposed to see a specialist to see what can be done.”

“What if the specialist knows how to cure this disease?” he asked.

The question was a blow to her ego. It suggested that perhaps she had not thought this through, that the possibility of a cure had not occurred to her.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“Well, what are you going to do if the doctor treats your cancer and you are cured? What will you have to hold against God then?” His voice remained gentle and calm as his words cut through Geraldine’s heart like the surgeon’s knife would, in a few weeks, cut through her skin and remove the offensive growth.

She did not know what to say. He spoke. “Geraldine, you think God has abandoned you. You think the work you have done for nearly thirty years is all about you. You think that God should not allow anything unpleasant to enter your life.”

And then she heard him speak familiar words. “Where were you,” he asked, “when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!”

Her mouth was wide; her eyes were even wider. The cancer inside her, not the one on her skin, the one in her heart, was being removed.

“Geraldine,” he said. “I am not angry with you. See the doctor. Follow his instructions. See what I will do for you.”

Geraldine woke up with a start. Her pillow was wet with sweat and tears. The familiar surroundings of her small house in the country she loved gradually came into focus around her. And she knew that God still loved her, and that tomorrow she would fly to the States and see the doctor and someday return free of the cancer on her skin, and free of the cancer in her heart.