Category: Cancer

I have lived with Advanced Prostate Cancer since 2006. I tell stories of the miracles that God has done in my life since

The Worse That Could Happen..

What is the worse thing you can think of? I am sure for many this will conjure up scenes of horrible death or living with some unbearable disability. I have to admit as I sat thinking that both of those scenarios were predominant in my thoughts. Living with terminal cancer for so many years has led me to imagine my demise and death. I am not trying to be morbid here, it is just something that I have thought about. Mainly since my marriage to RuthAnn I have wondered how burdensome my last days would be for her, even though she has assured me that it would not be a burden.

So why am I up at 5:30 in the morning thinking such lowly thoughts. I mean, life is good! The temperatures in Texas have finally dropped below the triple digits, we actually had rain a few nights ago and more is predicted. I am sitting in the comforts of our home with air conditioning and plenty of food to eat. I have the love of my wife and the knowledge of a Savior who died for me. Why is it that my thoughts drift to the negative so often?

I have tried to analyze this for years now. One of the reasons I started writing this blog was to work out all the negativity of my so-called lost years. It was my thought that if I wrote out some of these terribly negative things that I either created or was involved in that I could regenerate myself as a positive thinker. Unfortunately, or maybe fortunately it has not happened. Unfortunately, because I so often drift into negative thought which leads to negative actions. Fortunately, because I is a constant reminder of the man I once was and how much grace I have been shown. For me it is really a fine line in between the two.

The crazy thing about this fine line is how the Holy Spirit works in my life and that He never lets me settle into a really comfortable place. Just looking back on the last eight years it is amazing how unsettled my life has been. Back in 2015 I was a recent widower living in Grants Pass, Oregon. I had just begun to find my own relationship with Jesus. I had a comfortable home and a comfortable church. I was involved in ministries that I was sure that I was led to by the Holy Spirit. I had a comfortable if not likable job that afforded me to be generous in donation to many different causes and ministries. A year later it was all upturned.

I innocently began a conversation with a woman on Facebook. Within a short time, our lives became deeply intertwined. At the same time everything was in flux. So many things happened that I do not have the room to describe here. Suffice it to say by the end of that year RuthAnn and I were married. I moved to the state of Georgia and every comfortable thing I had was now replaced with having to experience a new life. This led to so many good things and yet it led to many negative feelings. I sometimes longed for the comforts of my life in Grants Pass but I knew God had a plan and RuthAnn and I would live it out together.

As I adjusted to this new life. New ministries and opportunities along with several disappointments happened. I finally began to write again after almost 45 years. I joined with a ministry I loved Celebrating Life in Recovery. I worked with RuthAnn at her school. Being among the kids was great! But also trials of having people believe things about me that were not true came with the good. Then Covid hit. RuthAnn retired and within a year we were moving again, this time to Texas.

In the midst of this my cancer activated enough to need attention beyond what I had done for 14 years. RuthAnn’s health also had issues which were not present just a few years before. Here we were in a new place (at least for me, RuthAnn had lived and worked in this area before) starting over. This time living with one of our kids, joined to a new really big church and struggling to find our way. It led to many soul-searching times like this morning.

Sitting in the quiet of our living room thinking of what’s next, my thoughts drift toward the negative. The ‘what ifs’, the ‘whys’ and the ‘how comes’ and even the ‘how long’. The blessing of all of this is that I know there was a time in my life that I would not be able to find any answers or if not answers at least assurances. But I am blessed and have been shown, even in all turmoil, grace as I have accepted the promises of God’s Word. Today as I have sat contemplating this favorite promise of mine has also been running through my mind:

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11

This is what grace to me looks like that even through negative thoughts and morbid ones, I am assured of one thing, God know the beginning from the end. I believe He know me better than myself and knows that if I am uncomfortable, I will seek His will and instead of trying to follow my own. It is not always easy, but it is certainly truth. I will settle for that this morning and see what this day may bring. I pray you can do the same.

The new reality…

It is strange but I have lived with the idea of imminent death for 15 years. Don’t get me wrong I did not wake up every morning and think is today my last. In fact, for 12 or 13 of those years I barely thought about cancer at all. Sure, I knew the Prostate Cancer I have is incurable, but I did not always FEEL like I had cancer. Doctors would ask if I were in pain but the only pain, I could tell them about was from years of Ironwork, old, tired muscles and bones, or some other normal aging pain.

There were times when I would be injected with the antigen which suppresses testosterone and for a few weeks to a month I would have problems with the symptoms those drugs caused. Nothing major, at least in the short run. For certain over the 15 years, I have been taking them, they have taken their toll; loss of muscle and bone mass, leaving me no longer able to do some of the things I used to do. Yes, I have had over one hundred radiation treatments and they have also sapped my strength. But all in all, not a terrible life. I have been blessed.

Just recently I have begun to live in a new reality. With cancer cell reoccurrences in a location where I have already been radiated, I am once again confronted with imminent death. Again, not today or tomorrow, but now doctors talk to me in terms of months instead of years. A new drug has been added to the regime that will stretch that time out a bit, but it too takes its toll in fatigue and a new kind of weakness. Once more I have the question of how I face this reality.

When I was first diagnosed back in 2006, I was a different person. Still caught up in addictions and without much hope in a future. I had not accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior and I faced my cancer with an attitude of worldly fatalism. You know, the old “…eat drink and be merry for tomorrow you will die” or something like that. I wanted to consume as much of this world as I could.

So, I did. For two years I spent most of my free time cruising around the Western Hemisphere, around the entirety of South America, through the Panama Canal, in the Caribbean Isles and many trips to the frozen north of Alaska. Drinking, partying, and eating at a hedonistic pace trying to fill the hole I had never been able to fill with drugs, sex, or alcohol over 40 years. I felt I was living each day to absorb the ‘good life.’ Only one problem it did not work. No matter how hard I tried there still was a hole.

I can never say if it was cancer that led me to seek a different life. Or if it was just that my wife decided she needed to return to God. I really don’t have an answer to this, but the truth is it does not matter. I know now it was by God’s grace and His timing that I finally did. Reading His Word, joining a family of believers and being baptized led to facing life in a new way. But now there was a new problem. Again, I don’t know if it was the underlying reality of my cancer or that I was totally convinced that time was short no matter what. I needed to spend the rest of my days working to show others that even in the face of death there is so much hope. I have been blessed to be able to touch lives through ministry and writing; by teaching and preaching. But now I come back to the question of how I face my end days reality.

Truth is I do not have an answer to this except I want to do the will of God. I want to wake up every morning and pray the prayer I have prayed for about 10 years now, “Lord make me willing to be willing!” I just want the strength to do that and be humble enough to accept that there will be days when I will not be able to do the things, I think are needed that day. I think that is the hardest part of this new reality, learning to accept limitations. I love the way Paul states it:

 “Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size – abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so, the weaker I get, the stronger I become.” 2 Corinthians 12:10 MSG Bible.

So, it comes down to each day. Do I feel weak today? How do I become strong in Jesus and not in myself? Well, I will admit I am still working on this. Maybe it is as simple as asking the Holy Spirit to dwell in me and allow this day to be directed by Him who knows the beginning from the end. No small task for a willful guy like myself. But I am blessed to at least know if I ask, He will answer.

The new reality is out there for so many today. Be it Covid, fires burning in California or the huge earthquake in Haiti. Mine is no different then yours. For each one of us today, there is only one answer, and His name is Jesus. Whatever your reality is call on His name and be saved!

Blessings

John

8/16/2021