This is my grandson Lincoln. Eight years ago I was diagnosed with latter stage rectal cancer, and I wasn’t given much hope of ever meeting Lincoln. The tumor they found was well developed, in the lymph system and malignant. I came home from the doctor’s office with my head swimming from the news. My wife was strong, but crushed. We had to tell our kids that evening. Life as we knew it had just fallen off of a cliff, and we were drug along for the ride.
Over the next days, I had to make several life changing decisions. To do treatment, and if so, what kind? Surgery? What kind and how many? Do you have a will? An advanced directive? Are you willing to be an organ donor or donate your body to science? I was being bombarded by well-meaning people who had so many questions – and no one seemed to have any answers for me.
Their answers were qualified and vague, and even their upbeat versions were limited in any quality of life for me. Their faces told us they would do what they could, but it didn’t look good. As I processed all that was happening, I asked myself this question:
What am I living for?
This wasn’t a philosophical statement. I had to quantify what it was that I would be fighting through this diagnosis to live for. When you are faced with hard times, you have to know what it is you are looking to see and experience on the other side of those hard times. You have to be reaching for something on the other side, not just flailing and hoping you make it.
Think of when you first learned to swim. When you were in a pool and in water that was deep, you began moving your arms and legs in order to get to the side of the pool. As you got closer, you didn’t just keep moving until you bumped into the pool’s side. You reached for the side of the pool. You were headed towards something you were anticipating. You knew once you grabbed the side of the pool, you were safe, and you could rest. Maybe your friends were there, or the ladder. You saw the pool side as something to strive for.
In asking myself what I was living for, I was looking to the other side of cancer, and what I would be doing after I beat it. I was going to grow old with my wife, who is my best friend. I was going to see my children graduate. I was going to walk my daughters down the aisle at their weddings. I was going to write several books. I was going to continue in God’s call on my life, and do the things he had spoken to my heart that I had not yet had a chance to do. I was determined that I was going to see God’s goodness in the land of the living. (Psalm 27:13)
I was going to see and enjoy my grandchildren – of which Lincoln is the first!
Seeing God Move
Those are some of the things I was, and am living for. I chose to live for them the day I was diagnosed with cancer, and every day since. Seven weeks of chemo and 28 radiation treatments. Three surgeries. I lived each day through them with what I was headed toward as my focus.
Eight years ago this week the surgeon opened me up and saw God’s faithfulness. The tumor that was there a month before was gone. The area where they planned to do a colostomy was completely healed, with in his words “pristine” tissue was where damaged tissue should have been. They pulled 21 lymph nodes and they were all negative for cancer. When I was in the deep part of the pool, Jesus had been there with me. I reached out to Him and He pulled me to the side. When my life was heading over the cliff, He reached out and caught my hand. I was able to grab it because I had been looking for it.
What Are You Living For?
What are you going through? What are you living for? What are you looking forward to? Some people live for the wrong things, and experience emptiness. If you are living for revenge, you’ll never be satisfied. If you are living for happiness, you need to define what true happiness would be, or you will never attain it. If you have a drinking problem, what are the things in life that are important to you? Live for them and move on from the booze. What you are living for can override how you are living now. (For a great example of this, read the story of Mr. Jones here.) I lived through doing chemo and radiation at the same time because of what I focused on what I would live for. You can do the same in your own situation.
There was a day not long ago when I held little Lincoln and looked in his face. As he focused in on me, I had a distinct sense of satisfaction come over me. I had fought long and hard to get to that moment. The scars on my body and mind from my fight remain as reminders of what I went through to get to that moment – but I had made it intact. Those hard times in life we go through are seldom of our choosing, but we can keep them from stealing our future.
I’ve walked one daughter down the aisle and have another to do this year. I write on a regular basis, have one book completed and am starting a second. I’m continuing in my calling, and my wife and I are at 25 years and going strong. Now I have Lincoln to make me feel younger and brighten my days. Those are the things I’ve been living for, and now I’m enjoying them.
Don’t just exist. Don’t live. Live for something.
You can flail, or you can focus. Swim toward the side, and call out for a helping hand. Realize you won’t be able to do it in your own strength, and ask for God’s help. Those things you live for can be the things you soon enjoy firsthand because of your focus and God’s faithfulness!
Psalm 27:13
I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.
If you’d like to read more about my testimony, you can find it here and here.
Also, if you know someone this could help, please take the time to share it.
