Both of us sit hunched over the book for a long time, our arms around each other and our eyes fixed on the pages. My heart thunders inside my chest, and I want to pull away, but I can’t stop staring at the page, can’t stop sucking in every single word and savoring every bite of it.

We sit there for a long time, flipping through the pages and reading verses to each other. Marya is quiet, thoughtful, but somehow her words slice through the darkness shrouding my mind, and I know, somehow, that things are different now. That I’m different.

She tells me about Jesus, God’s son, who sacrificed the glory of heaven to come to earth. She talks about how he was rejected, mocked, scorned, and eventually, he died. She tells about his fear and his anguish about his death coming, and him sweating so hard that blood came out. She tells about his cry as he was on the cross, “It is finished”, the price is paid. She says he died for me. Because I am a sinner, because I broke away from God, and now he- the innocent one- is the one who will pay the price.

But then she goes on, and she tells me that he didn’t stay dead. He was in the tomb for three days, and then he rose again and conquered death forever. She tells about how sin has no power over us anymore, and we don’t have to fear hell or the grave anymore, because Jesus has paid the way to heaven. Death has no sting. Hell has no victory. Jesus is alive.

Her slow breathing calms me, soothes me. I close my eyes and lean back in my chair, letting the incredible weight of the words settle down on me.

I’m free. It’s done. I don’t have to be afraid anymore. There’s hope. Life. Belonging. If only I know where to look.

I lean forward, resting my head on Marya’s shoulder. “Now what?”

She smiles, and wraps her arm tightly around me, placing the Bible into my hands. “What do you mean?”

I shake my head, pulling the Bible closer to my heart. I dribble the pages with my fingers, struggling to find the words to say, and then finally, I whisper, “What does this mean for my life so far? What does this mean for my cancer?”

She stands up, and grabs my hand, pulling me up next to her. “I don’t know, Lyssy. I can’t promise healing, but I can tell you that God will be with you for every second of it.”

“Why would he do this?” My voice is quiet, barely a whisper. “How could a good God make me hurt so much?” Marya leads me towards the door, and I follow quietly behind her, keeping my eyes focused on her face.

Marya turns around, swinging open the door for me and guiding me to the car. “Maybe he did it to get your attention.” She pauses, and slips into the drivers seat. I sit down next to her.

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“If it weren’t for your cancer, you wouldn’t be here,” she tells me. “You wouldn’t be listening to anything I was saying. And I wouldn’t be saying it.”

“Do you think he can take it away?”

She stops for a long time, cranking the petal and pulling out of the parking lot. “Your cancer? I guess he could, if he wanted to. But maybe he’s going for a deeper healing then that.”

I drop my hand to the ground, turning away from her and shoving away the tears in my eyes. Somehow I knew she would say something like that. “Marya, why wouldn’t he heal me? Surely he can see that’s what I need right now.”

Marya keeps her eyes fixed on the road. “I don’t know, Lyssy. But I do know that he can see what you need, and he knows that what you need isn’t always the same as what you want.. Maybe he will heal you, maybe he won’t. But either way, you can trust that it’s what’s best for you.”

Bile rises in my throat, and I stare at my lap, struggling to breathe. “He would really think it’s best to just sit up there and watch me suffer? That’s not the kind of God I want to love.”

I can feel Marya’s eyes burning into my skin, but I still don’t look up. “Lyssy, you don’t understand,” she says forcefully. “God is good, you just have to trust him. He knows what you need way better than you do.”

I feel anger burn through me, and more tears sear my cheeks. “How can you say that?” I ask quietly. “You wouldn’t say that he was good if you were sitting in my shoes. You can’t just ‘trust’ him, and that’s it. I don’t want to trust someone who’s proved that he will hurt me.”

Marya screeches to a halt in front of a red light, and turns to stare at me. “You aren’t hearing a word that I’m saying,” she protests. “God did have a plan for your cancer. We’ve already talked about that. He helped you get along better with your Mum, and he gave us this conversation. I’m sure he’s doing something, even if we can’t see what it is.”

“There had to have been gentler ways to do that,” I mumble.

Cars honk behind us, and I look up and see that the light has turned green. The car lurches forward.

“I don’t know,” Marya says, frustrated, and she bangs her palm against the steering wheel. “Why don’t you talk about this with Joshua, Lyssy? He’s been studying this all his life.”

I stomp my foot against the floor, not understanding why I’m so upset. Joshua’s smiling face flashes in front of my eyes, and somehow the thought of him brings more tears streaming down my cheeks. “I don’t need to talk to Joshua,” I snap. “I don’t need Jesus.” I don’t know why I say the words, because I don’t truly believe them. But the moment their off my tongue, Marya’s face blanches, and the look on her face sends more tears flying down my cheeks.

She jerks to a stop, and I cry for her to keep going, but her body is completely frozen. My heart cracks within me, and a sob slips off my lips, begging her to drive forward, But she’s still, and icy, and I hear the roar of the car behind us too late.

I’m falling, slamming forward, the airbag hitting my face like a cold slap. The seatbelt locks around my waist, I feel trapped, and I scream, again and again and again. The world blurs into a swirl of colors, everything is falling apart, everything has shattered. Pain blinds my vision, and I feel blood trickling down my waist, although I don’t know how it got there.

I feel strong hands crawling over me, but when I try to open my eyes and look up, I find that I can’t. I can’t move, just sit there and struggle to breathe while I find myself lifted up, and I know that it’s Marya’s arms that are cradling me. Loud voices yell, sirens wail, more cars race past. Still, blood seeps across my skin, staining everything in a crimson glow.

Everything has broken. I am going to die.