Fighting Cancer

We called him Judd.  I don’t know if that was his real name; it’s just what we called him.  Judd was the biggest guy in 5th grade.  A professional bully.  One day during recess, I made a foolish remark about Judd while he stood no more than a foot away from me.  His fist met my face and sent me to the ground.  My anger wanted vengeance, but instead I picked myself up off the ground and walked away.  Not because I believed in turning the other cheek, but because Judd was 20 pounds heavier, 10 inches taller, and a hundred times meaner.  It was a fight I knew I couldn’t win.

Cancer is often portrayed as a bully we must battle against.  Fighting cancer is viewed as a virtue.  Of course, there are some people who have good reasons for fighting it.  Jan did.  I tell people that her biggest fear wasn’t cancer, it was having to leave the kids with me!  She fought hard, participating in clinical trials, getting monthly IV treatments, eating a strict anti-cancer diet, taking nutritional supplements, and spending hours each day researching the best ways to fight the cancer bully.

Statistics tell me that fighting stage-4 kidney cancer is a battle I can’t win.  If you’ve read some of my previous blogs, like my ‘Cookies and Cream’ entry, or ‘My Amazing Cancer Diet’, you know that I’m not putting up much of a fight.  Each person with cancer has to evaluate for himself how much of a fight to put up.  Whether you fight hard (like Jan) or nearly not at all (like me), cancer remains our opportunity to proclaim God’s goodness while in the midst of a wasting disease. 

The Bible tells me that the Lord has predetermined the length of my life (Job 14:5).  “All my days were written in His book before one of them ever came to be” (Psalm 139:16).  While there may be foolish ways to shorten one’s life, there isn’t anything I can do to make it longer.   Therefore, whether in my personal praises to the Lord, or in my public testimony of His goodness, I want to focus each day in living for Him.  I let Him battle the bullies of fear, worry, and anxiety.  He never loses!

In return, God has graced me with His joy, resting in His peace at what is to come.  I know when discomfort increases, as it has this month, it will be harder to ‘rest’ and walk in daily joy.  But that’s my goal.  Please pray that “Christ will always be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death” (Phil. 1:20).

PS.  Hannah and Daniel dedicated Nathaniel this month in their local church.  Listen to Hannah's testimony about their "miracle" baby.