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My God is true!

Lessons along cancer's dark road

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MY GOD IS TRUE!
Lessons along cancer’s dark road
By Paul D. Wolfe
Banner of Truth. 150 pages. £6.25
ISBN 978-1-84871-044-3

In 1999, Paul Wolfe, then a student at Westminster Theological Seminary, was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He was 29 years old and hadn’t yet celebrated his first wedding anniversary. This book is, in his words, ‘part memoir, part teaching’ and, while the author recounts the story of his battle with cancer, the primary focus throughout is on the lessons that God taught him.

He starts from the conviction that it was God, not rogue cells, who brought cancer into his life. God is the scriptwriter of our lives and the book reads as an extended treatment of the reality of the sovereignty of God as it played out in his life. The book doesn’t linger over the question of ‘why’, but rather embraces and teases out the implications of the biblical material relating to God’s ways not being our ways. The author aims to equip the believer with robust truths to cling on to and that need to frame our thinking when dark providences cross our paths.

The author survived his battle with cancer and gives an honest and engaging account of his symptoms, treatment, how he felt throughout and the challenges he and his family faced. Although not entirely a straightforward read (some fairly demanding theological issues are dealt with throughout), it is solidly biblical, at times moving and hugely edifying, and contains helpful pastoral advice on how we might support cancer sufferers and their families.

Kathy Cowan,
member at St. Andrew the Great, Cambridge