You will waste your cancer if you believe it is a curse and not a gift.
“There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). “There is no enchantment against Jacob, no divination against Israel” (Numbers 23:23). “The Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor. No good thing does he withhold from those who walk uprightly” (Psalm 84:11).
DP: The blessing comes in what God does for us, with us, through us. He brings his great and merciful redemption onto the stage of the curse. Your cancer, in itself, is one of those 10,000 ‘shadows of death’ (Psalm 23:4) that come upon each of us: all the threats, losses, pains, incompletion, disappointment, evils. But in his beloved children, our Father works a most kind good through our most grievous losses: sometimes healing and restoring the body (temporarily, until the resurrection of the dead to eternal life), always sustaining and teaching us that we might know and love him more simply. In the testing ground of evils, your faith becomes deep and real, and your love becomes purposeful and wise: James 1:2-5, 1 Peter 1:3-9, Romans 5:1-5, Romans 8:18-39.
JG: I tend to hangout in law and not grace. Law says cancer is punishment. Grace says cancer is gift. For me, I must read the Scripture Pastor Piper quoted and say, “Amen.” I must ask the Spirit of God to open my eyes to the magnitude of grace that Christ purchased for me. To accept it, relish it, live in it. Christ’s becoming a curse for me means that God only ever acts toward me in love and mercy. Amen!
“In the testing ground of evils, your faith becomes deep and real, and your love becomes purposeful and wise.” I have been praying for a few years now that my faith would be deep and real. As happens so often when God moves to answer our prayers, he does it in ways we don’t expect or want. I did not want him to use cancer or any other suffering for that matter. The Scripture listed by David Powlison says God’s purpose in our various trials is just what I’ve been praying. It is indeed a gift to me that God would deepen my faith and make it more genuine through breast cancer.
On the Greisen Side of Life 
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