Author and scientist Carl Sagan says that the material world is the only reality. If we accept this premise, then nature has been cruel to us, giving us, as someone has cynically phrased it, “the endowments of a god and the career of an insect.”

King Solomon declared in Ecclesiastes that from a purely human standpoint everything is meaningless (1:2), but he also considered God’s view. He observed the creative and destructive cycle of our existence (3:1-8) and concluded that everything is beautiful in its time (v.11). He knew that when we see life from the perspective of eternity we will see the beauty of God’s ways.

But Solomon also realized that God hasn’t given us the answers to every question (v.11). He advised us to accept life’s good things with gratitude, and to face its difficulties with faith, not despair.

Shirley De Jong, who at 58 knew she had terminal cancer, followed this advice. With her husband she enjoyed doing what her strength permitted. She looked back over her life and spoke of the beauty of each stage. She saw her illness as the means by which God would soon take her to heaven.

Real faith enables us to see that even a terminal illness can be “beautiful in its time.”

  — Herbert Vander Lugt