"Whatever you have, it's weird."
     That's not what you want to hear from a doctor in any situation. We heard it from a specialist trying to explain why we still(!) have no official diagnosis. His explanation was quite helpful - if this MRI scan had been taken 15 years ago, there were only two big "boxes" to put things in and treatment was similarly generalized. But over the years, as genetic study and molecular analysis have advanced, the old boxes were too big and general, so new categories were made. More specific names. More specific treatment. And hopefully, that means more effective treatment. But we're still learning.  Whatever I have, it doesn't fit in today's boxes.

     Science searches for more names to describe what afflicts us, because names can tell us about the nature of the thing they describe, and knowing its nature can give us the knowledge we need to fight it. If we know the warrior on the other side of the battlefield is Achilles, then we can aim for his heel.

     We do this in life as well; we want to name our enemies. It's nothing new. Jacob wrestled the angel of God and demanded to know his name (Genesis 32:24-30). Jesus cast out a demon after demanding to know the demon's name (Mark 5:1-13). The ancient belief was that knowing a name gives you power over something (or if not power, then authority, as Adam was tasked with naming the animals under his care). And so today we don't just say someone has a mental illness, we have to name what kind of mental illness they have. It's not enough for a child to say they were bullied at school, we have to know the name of the oppressor. We don't confess sin in general, we name our specific sins.

     So it should have come as no surprise to me when I learned upon entering the somber community of brain cancer patients that some people give a name to their tumor:  "Hopefully that's the last we see of Old Lumpy."  "Clive is acting up again." "The doctor says Lucille is shrinking."  Naming it removes some of the fear of the unknown.

     And so right now scientists at the National Institute of Health are trying to find the name of the unwelcome visitor in my head. A name that makes sense of the confusing mix of test results we've seen. A name that will identify any weakness and point us towards a path of treatment. A name that will give us some idea of what to expect in the coming months or years. Whatever it is, it's weird.  And we try to find some hope in the news that, if it's not the really bad thing whose name we do know, then it might be something not as bad.

But that's not our real hope. Our real hope is that we don't need to know the name of our enemy. We need only know the name of our champion. He who numbers even the hairs of my head (Matthew 10:29-31) is the one who "gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist" (Romans 4:17). I know his name, and he knows mine. Whatever weirdness is happening in my head is not beyond his knowledge or power. I still want to know what kind of tumor I have, and not just for the sake of curiosity. But my hope is not in naming my enemy. My hope is in naming my Savior.