The Diagnosis That Disappeared

In March 2019, Maria Gonzalez sat in the oncology waiting room at Houston Methodist, hands folded tight, bracing herself for the follow-up scans. Eight months of chemotherapy had hollowed her out. She had already drafted instructions for her sister about the children. She had picked hymns for her funeral. She had prepared herself for the worst because preparing for anything else felt dangerous.

When Dr. Patel called her back and pulled up the images, he was quiet for a long moment. Then he said, "Maria, I don't know how to explain this. The tumors are gone. All of them."

She did not cry. She did not celebrate. She sat perfectly still, gripping the armrest, and whispered, "That can't be right." For three full days, she told no one — not her sister, not her children, not her pastor. The news was too enormous to carry out of that room. She had rehearsed grief so thoroughly that she had no script for resurrection.

That is Mark 16:1-8. The women came to anoint a corpse. They had packed spices for death, not a parade for life. And when the angel said, "He is risen," they fled trembling. Not because they doubted the messenger, but because the goodness was so staggering it short-circuited everything they had prepared for.

Sometimes the Almighty answers so far beyond our expectations that the first response is not hallelujah — it is holy, trembling silence.