Where Are You God? My Wife Has Cancer

It started as a cough. By the time the scan came back, Lynn — forty-one, two sons, sixteen years cancer-free — had a tumour the size of a tennis ball in her lungs. Stage 4. The prognosis was weeks. This is the story of what followed.

Where Are You God? My Wife Has Cancer is Dr Michael Janse van Rensburg’s memoir of love and lament. A husband, father, and theologian’s account of the months between the first cough and the questions he could no longer outrun. Written in present tense, while his wife is still alive.

How do you sit across the dining room table from a wife who is dying, and pray? How do you tell a twelve-year-old? How do you keep believing when the prayers come back as silence?

The book moves slowly through small rooms. A hospital bedside. A passage with an oxygen concentrator running. The bedroom where two boys lie in the dark playing a tickle game called Are you happy? It refuses the easy verses. It does not promise miracles. It sits, instead, with Psalm 88, the only psalm in scripture that ends in darkness, and with the two-word verse before Lazarus is raised: Jesus wept.

A memoir for readers walking through cancer or grief, for those wrestling with the old question of faith and suffering, for anyone who has cried out into a silent sky and wondered whether anyone was listening.

A Christian memoir in the tradition of literary lament. The long Holy Saturday between crucifixion and resurrection, where Sunday has not yet come.

About the author

Dr Michael Janse van Rensburg lives in Strand, South Africa, with his wife Lynn and their two sons, TJ and Daniel. He holds a Doctor of Theology and serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Heritage Western Cape. His academic work has explored questions of faith, suffering, and the presence of God in a world marked by pain and uncertainty.

Where Are You, God? My Wife Has Cancer is the book he never intended to write. Inspired by his family’s cancer journey, it tells the story of Lynn’s battle with sarcoma and the impact it has had on their marriage, faith, and family life. Through sharing their story, Michael and Lynn hopes to offer encouragement, companionship, and hope to others walking a similar road.

Publisher: MLTD Janse van Rensburg Publishing

ISBN: 978-1-0483-0579-1

Available from: More information about the book, including excerpts, reviews, and purchase options, is available at WrittenForLynn.com