I met Mr. Jones early into my cancer treatment. We had our radiation treatments one right after the other. I was first, then Mr. Jones. We would see each other several times a week as we each waited for our appointment time to come. Often we would joke about me leaving enough radiation in the machine for him to get his “nuking” in too.
When I first met Mr. Jones he was very depressed. His health was poor, he had to use an oxygen tank, and he had cancer. He was checking off many of the boxes to warrant depression. Sitting next to him, I was thankful that besides the cancerous tumor I was fighting with, I was in good health. I wasn’t lugging around an oxygen tank, my weight was good, and my blood pressure was normal. I was the picture of health – with a tumor. The cancer could have easily sent me into depression, but early on I had made a decision to not focus on what the treatment was doing to me, or what the cancer was doing to me. Instead I chose to think about how I was going to make it to the other side of this journey and keep on living. I had things to do, people to see, a destiny to fulfill. Most of all, I had trust in my Lord that He was with me every step of the way.
During those first days of getting to know Mr. Jones I noticed that there was little talk of a future with him. His thoughts were dominated by the plight he was in and the negative outcome that possibly awaited him. It broke my heart to see this big, warm fella pretty much resolved to his life devolving into nothing. I saw something there that gave me insight into where he and so many other people were. He saw no future for himself. He had no hope.
Hope For Today
Psalm 27:13
I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord
In the land of the living.
Among many scriptures, this had been one that I had anchored myself to. Sitting there with a tumor over 5cm large eating away at me, I needed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. I wanted to see it while I was alive, not just in the sweet by and by. Just as David spoke of in that 27th Psalm, I chose to trust my Lord to preserve me and see me through. That is why I hadn’t lost heart and fallen into despair. David started off his psalm with this statement:
Psalm 27:1-3
The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be afraid?
When the wicked came against me to eat up my flesh,
My enemies and foes, they stumbled and fell.
3 Though an army may encamp against me, my heart shall not fear;
Though war may rise against me, In this I will be confident.
In verse 3 David said “In this I will be confident.” What was he confident in? It’s in verse 1. “The Lord is my light and my salvation; The Lord is the strength of my life.” It’s because of these things that he could say in verse 13 that he was confident that he would see God’s goodness in the land of the living. Who God was to him gave him that confidence. It was my confidence as well.
An Avenue to The Heart
Each day I sat a couple of feet away from Mr. Jones and had the answer he was looking for. I expected to see God’s goodness in my body. That was my hope, and I had it placed in the fact that Jesus was my light and my salvation; He was the strength of my life. So the question became, “How do I share my hope with Mr. Jones?” I could’ve went into a fine scriptural dissertation for him. I could teach and preach and pray. Yet I had gotten to know him well enough to understand that in doing so I would probably lose him. Instead, I prayed and asked the Holy Spirit to show me a way in to him. The Holy Spirit is the wooer of hearts, and He would know the approach I should take.
The next time we met for treatment Mr. Jones and I began to talk and he told me that he had visited with his granddaughter over the weekend. I noticed a light in his eyes when he spoke about her, and I realized that she was the way in to sharing hope with him. Over the next few days I made sure to bring her up in conversation, and each time he would smile, telling me more about her and how much she meant to him. I would talk about my life after cancer, and him enjoying getting to spend time with his granddaughter and seeing her grow.
Before long Mr. Jones was starting the conversations about life after cancer. He was no longer the depressed man I had met. He would come in smiling and joking. We would talk about how we were handling our treatments, or how our families were doing. It was during those times that I had the opportunity to share with him about my hope and where it came from. He was open and receptive, and we had good conversations.
During the later days of treatment I arrived one morning to see Mr. Jones had beat me in. I noticed something different about him. He smiled when I asked, and informed me that he wasn’t using an oxygen tank any longer! I saw firsthand how hope had been working in him. God is so good.
“Keep the Faith”
On my last day of treatment Mr. Jones and I talked about our days together in that little waiting room. We reminisced about how things started and how far each of us had come in our journeys. It was such a great relief to be finishing my radiation treatments, but it was a bit bittersweet to be saying goodbye to Mr. Jones. As I walked back for my last treatment I looked to him and let him know I wouldn’t use all the radiation up and would leave some for him, to which I got a big smile and a hearty laugh.
When I finished my treatment and walked back to the waiting room Mr. Jones met me at the door. We laughed a bit, hugged, and said our goodbyes. Then as I began to leave, he looked at me and said, “Mike, you keep the faith.” That made every one of those 28 treatment days with Mr. Jones worth it. When the radiation burns would make things almost intolerable, I would think back to Mr. Jones and “keep the faith.” I was in awe of the change that hope had produced in him.
The depressed man I met was transformed by hope. Hope is such a powerful thing. When hope exists, a person can see a future that belongs to him. He can look beyond his circumstances and believe that better things can happen. Faith can rise up and motivate that same person to not settle for things as they are, but aspire to more, for better. The key for Mr. Jones was his granddaughter. How precious the Holy Spirit was to show me that, and allow me to be used to bring hope to that dear man. I don’t know what all God was doing in that man’s heart, but I am blessed to have been used in it.
Who can you share hope with today? When you share hope with someone, it opens the door to their heart. From there you can share with them where true hope comes from. Lives can be transformed by the power of hope. We change the world one person at a time. Let hope begin that change today.
Psalm 43:5
Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; For I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God.
