“To Keep Me from Being Too…?”

“Therefore, in order to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh…” ​​​​​​​​​​ 2 Corinthians12:7

The Apostle Paul talks about an experience of being “caught up into Paradise” where he received revelations of an “exceptional” character. By his own testimony, this experience put him in danger of being “too elated.” And so, again by Paul’s own interpretation of events, God gave him a “thorn in the flesh” to keep him from becoming too elated. Paul prayed three times for God to remove this thorn, but the answer was no.

I have been thinking about this story since last month when our prayer for the tumor in my head to totally disappear was not answered in the specific way we requested.

I am different from Paul. Being too elated is not normally a risk for me. Rather the opposite. I seem by nature to be visionary about what is possible and pessimistic about whether people will embrace what is not yet a reality. I am not a person who gets “too elated.”

But I have been asking myself whether the tumor remaining in place might help me change in some way. If I removed the words “too elated” from Paul’s sentence, how would I fill in the blank? I am not suggesting that God is leaving the tumor “to teach me a lesson.” That would seem an over-dramatic loss of perspective on God’s part. I don’t think God acts that way.

But it might be good for me to think more about who I am, and who I could be that would be better. Paul’s thorn in the flesh apparently was for his own good. The remains of the tumor may be for mine. Its continued presence seems to prevent me from jumping out of my contemplative thought processes of the last 21 months. It keeps me focused on spiritual things, and who I want to be as a spiritual person.

So my question to myself is “In order to keep me from being too…what?” Or maybe, “In order to help me stop being too…something?”

My first thought was—too pessimistic. Creative pessimism has come naturally to me for most of my life. But I find that these last two years have made me less pessimistic. It must be all the thinking about this world and the next, all the drawing nearer to God and being aware of God’s goodness, all the support and prayers of people around the world. I find I am not the pessimist I used to be. And I am surprised. But I like it.

Too harsh? Too willing to be critical? Perhaps most people would not use the term to describe me. But some would. And I would. I think that in some ways I have become more kind in the thoughts of my heart since the tumor appeared. Perhaps God’s hope for us is that we become all kindness and no harshness toward one another. I hope I am moving a little in that direction.

Too impatient? For sure I can be impatient. And is impatience really anger that I don’t control the world and can’t make everything go as I want it to go? Is impatience really a complaint about other people? About God?

Too willing to put sounds and images in my mind that are unpleasant, unedifying? Can I learn not to watch that violent movie, that latest of a long line of TV shows degrading to human beings?

To keep me from becoming too…what? To help me stop being too…what?

The old theological term for this process is sanctification; the Biblical term is “growing up into Christ.” God wants me to be a better person than I am. Somehow the last two years have helped. Somehow still having the tumor seems to be helping.

I recently read that the poet Walt Whitman once suggested we examine what is going on in our minds, and dismiss anything we find there that is insulting to our souls.

I am looking inside for the things that are insulting to my soul. And asking God to help me dismiss those things.
I find the process refreshing.

Surrendering Control

If you’d asked me to describe myself a couple of years ago, my answer would have gone something like this, “I have brown hair, brown eyes, and am about 5’6” tall.  I like to read, watch birds, study new things, dabble in photography, and spend time with good friends.  I struggle with patience, but am organized, driven, and good at controlling things.”

I will never forget the moment I learned that being good at controlling things wasn’t necessarily a personality trait.  I was sitting in a room full of godly women who were all taking the same bible study class.  We were in a rally as we kicked off a section of our class about identity and learning who we were in Christ.  The leaders of each of the small groups were sharing their personal stories of transformation and every single one without fail had a piece of their story that was about struggling with a need to control.  They spoke as though it was a struggle we all had in common, and a desire we had to learn to surrender to experience true freedom.

When we got back to our small groups I was uncharacteristically quiet.  My fellow students talked excitedly about the upcoming section as I stared at the wall, my general world view a bit shaken.  The leader noticed my silence and asked what was on my mind.  I remember asking the girls in the room if they too would describe themselves as needing to control the things and people around them.  To a person they responded yes.  Looking back now, I don’t know how I didn’t realize it was a universal trait, but I really didn’t.  And more importantly, that it wasn’t a trait, but rather a crutch with the power to negatively influence my life.  I truly thought my need and ability to control things and people was a piece of my character, a gift from God.  After all, it was what made me a good manager in my professional life. 

At the time, I was in the class because my carefully crafted world was tumbling down around me.  My marriage was in a freefall, my professional life had been turned upside down, I’d lost much of my support system, and my dad had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.  I was running myself ragged trying to implement any strategy of control I could to change what was happening around me.  It had always worked before, but this time no matter my response, my effort, or my actions, I couldn’t seem to reverse the course I was on.  My ability to control was failing me, and adding this piece of information suddenly explained why…I’d never actually been in control.

That moment in the class was both one of my lowest moments and my best.  It kicked off one of the hardest weeks of my life, a week I spent grieving deeply for the things I knew I’d have to surrender to God’s control knowing He may choose a different path for me, and grieving for the years I’d wasted controlling every person, situation, and detail around me, often hurting those I loved in the process.  It was the week I faced my fear of losing everything dear to me head-on, wrestling with God over who knew better the way my life should go, and surrendering the ultimate outcome to Him.  But waiting for me at the end of the grief was the perfect gift of freedom, peace, and surprisingly, an abundance of free time. 

In the end, wrestling with God and concluding that my need to control things didn’t make me unique nor was it a quality gifted from God, made it easy to give up the tight hold I had on every area of my life.  Suddenly it was clear the only things I could control were how I responded to people, how I viewed them, what I did with my time, and my relationship with God.  That was it.  Nothing else. 

Fast forward two years to this moment now, the moment we didn’t get the exact response we’d prayed for, the moment we learned my dad’s tumor still remained stubbornly in place.  Two years ago that news would have shaken me, tested my faith, and sent me into a frenzy of research as I attempted to uncover what else we could try to get our intended response.  Yet in this moment I feel strangely peaceful.  My dad’s health falls squarely in the category of things I can’t control and over the last two years, I’ve learned to surrender that category to God.

I recently visited my grandmother, one of the wisest women I know.  I spent three days with her, just the two of us and felt deeply blessed to have her and her wisdom all to myself.  During one conversation I asked her whether she had ever audibly heard God speak to her.  She told me a story of a time when she had three small children all under the age of five and was pregnant with a fourth, a boy who was stillborn.  She remembers being exhausted one day, sick with a pregnancy that wasn’t going right and worn out from attending to the needs of three small children.  Desperate for rest, she sent a plea to God asking if He’d watch the children while she took a small nap.  He answered with, “Aileen, you take care of them when you can, I’ll take care of them when you can’t.”

She explained from that moment on, she never worried about her children, even when she sent my uncle to Vietnam or when my dad was diagnosed with cancer.  She figures God promised to care for them when she couldn’t and since she can’t be with my dad now, he must be on God’s watch. 

And surprisingly that’s how I feel about this recent news.  While we prayed for a different outcome, my dad has always been and will always remain in God’s care, his path under God’s perfect control.  Sure I still pray for his complete healing, I still pass on any articles I stumble across that could positively influence his health, but the underlying feeling and motive is different.  Gone is the frenzy, the anxiety, and the fear.  It has been replaced with a peace that came when I fully released every aspect of my life during that painful week two years ago.  A peace that came when the worst outcome was realized for my marriage yet my capacity for faith, forgiveness, and love remained intact.  A peace that came when I finally humbled myself before God and admitted His plan was better and wiser than my own.  Most importantly, a peace that could only come when I unequivocally surrendered control. 

These days I’m thankful that my description of myself would have a slight variation.  It would end with, “…organized, driven, and fully trusting of God’s plan.”  

It was a hard trade, but a beautiful one.        

-Sara

In the Land of the Living, Part 2

“I walk before the Lord in the land of the living…” Psalm 116:9

It occurred to me overnight that if we had not made the specific prayer request for the tumor to totally disappear and for the December 10 MRI to show its absence, we would have been elated with yesterday’s appointment with our doctor.

Always the professional realist (a.k.a. pessimist) about my prognosis, this time he bordered on optimism. He said that none of the available statistics regarding this tumor any longer pertain to me. I have surpassed the statistics so completely that there is no available information about the course my treatment response will take. Most people with this tumor would have died three months ago. Yet I remain strong, with the tumor small and stable. My body is highly tolerant of the chemo treatments, and the tumor is highly responsive to the treatments. Every year I live (approaching 2 years on April 1) significantly increases my chances of living significantly longer. And for the first time, he mentioned some potential research breakthroughs that may create more effective treatments in the intermediate future. I told him that my goal is to live with strength until I am at least 81, and at that point to die of something unrelated to the tumor. While he was probably skeptical, he did not deny that possibility outright. This is progress toward optimism for him. And I, having the luxury of not being the professional medical expert, can be more optimistic than it is professional for him to be.

I also factor in God and prayer and stories from the scriptures about God’s personal covenant with people. I know the last word is always God’s word; not my word, not a doctor’s word. I am fine with that. I would not want it another way.

So without the focus on a specific prayer for tumor disappearance and MRI confirmation, we would have been thrilled with yesterday’s meeting. The more I think about it, the more I am thrilled. A friend emailed me this morning saying “I think the news you received yesterday is a miracle. You are the only person to ever respond to this chemo in this way with the ability to continue. That is miraculous.” I totally agree.

Yet we felt strongly prompted, by God we believed, to pray this specific prayer request. So what was that about?

I think I have been changed emotionally and psychologically by the prayer we prayed. The dullness I was experiencing has vanished though the tumor did not. The feeling of oppression in the daily awareness of my mortality has lifted, and for now at least is gone without a trace. Somehow praying that specific prayer so loudly and so widely put me at peace about God knowing what the issue was for me (irrational I know…God already knows before we say even a tentative, whispered prayer). Somehow that issue is over because so many of you prayed that specific prayer with me. It is in God’s hands now, right where it should be. I am content with that. My daughter Katy suggested that God may still answer that specific prayer in that specific way some time later, perhaps when we are not even noticing. I am ok with that too. I have room in my experience of God for that kind of God behavior.

So what is next? I feel freer now. Freer to live into the life that is before me rather than constantly asking myself whether I will have the time to do this or that; to accomplish this goal or experience that experience. I still don’t get how not receiving what we asked for can feel this good. I can only testify that it does.

Another friend emailed this wisdom: “Time to shake the dust off your sandals, depart the land of uncertainty and spiritual dullness and dance into the land of faithful hope. Labor boldly and live radically. Permit others to love you as you love and whatever time you are accorded, let it be lived with integrity and faithfulness.”

Sounds like a plan. Not sure about the dancing, but if I can take it figuratively instead of literally, I am ok with that too.

In the Land of the Living

“I walk before the Lord in the land of the living…” Psalm 116:9

Jinny and I, our church, and hundreds of friends have been praying for the last several weeks that my December MRI would show the last 10% of brain cell cancer in my head has disappeared.

Yesterday I had the MRI. Today we met with our doctor. The MRI shows that the cancer remains. Jinny and I thought the tumor looked a little smaller. Our doctor thought any difference was negligible. Whichever of us was right, the tumor is definitely still there.

Interestingly, in the context of our overall meeting with the doctor, the information that the tumor is still present did not bother us. I thought I might be depressed with such news, or suffer a mini-crisis in faith. Instead we are feeling pretty positive. I don’t know yet all the reasons we are reacting as we are. But since many are waiting to hear how our prayers were answered, I hurry to share my initial thoughts.

We are glad we prayed that God remove 100% of the cancer and that the MRI confirm this. We are glad that we asked others to pray that specific prayer with us, and that many did. Both Jinny and I felt strongly that we wanted to pray in that way, and even that we were prompted spiritually to do so. We are glad that we prayed specifically and publically. There is no doubt in our minds that we made our desires and motives known to the Lord. We don’t have to ask ourselves if we should have made a better prayer effort. God definitely heard what we were asking. We have no doubt about that, and can relax about that issue. God heard, and will remember, and will respond as God chooses.

A friend said to us on Sunday, “God has this covered. Whatever happens, you know God has got this.” That feels right.

Somehow feeling this way seems to also free me from feeling dull, from feeling oppressed by my daily awareness that a “fatal” cancer is still present in my brain. I was struggling with 20 months of carrying this knowledge. That burden seems to be lifted, and I feel like I have a green light (or have given myself one) to get on with the things I am excited about doing without the nagging questions “Will you have time to get this done? Will you have time to experience this event?” Now the answers to those questions are up to God, and trusting God’s wisdom, I can proceed as though I had all the time in the world. I have all the time God chooses to give me. That is good enough.

It also feels ok with me that I have not received (not yet at least) the “miracle” I was asking for. Most people don’t get the miracle they pray for. So I remain among the “common” people, not receiving specifically all that I have asked for. Yet receiving much from the Lord and from good people in support, love, and the sharing of their strength.

I am tempted to remind God that there was a great opportunity here to encourage people and to strengthen their faith or even, with some, to begin their faith; and God let that opportunity pass, for reasons hidden to us. I have to trust God on that one. And I pray that no one’s faith was hindered or damaged by disappointment that we are not now wildly celebrating the wonders of God’s love shown in specific prayers specifically answered. Please don’t draw any conclusions about the personal nature of God’s love or God’s personal commitment to us just because the MRI image still shows a tumor.

I find I am also feeling an inner peace that I am not separated by a miracle from dear friends who did not get the miracle they wanted for a loved one that they eventually lost. I would hate to have people hear my story and ask “Why him, and not my daughter, my son, my husband, my friend?” So I am content that God is wise.

The good news is that my doctor seems to be growing a little optimistic about me. He said today that most people who get this type of brain cancer die within 18 months. I have lived with it 21 months already, and am doing well. He said again that if I live with this cancer for 24 months my chances of surviving much longer go way up. He said again that I am so far off the statistical charts that there is no way to predict my future, except that I am trending toward good results. He also talked for the first time about advances being made in research that might lead to treatment breakthroughs in a few years.

So I walk before the Lord in the land of the living. I have learned to count my days, and am also learning not to worry so much about their number. And I am remembering to be grateful for the remarkable response to treatment that I have already been given.

Before my doctor’s appointment this morning the thought came to me “The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything.” That seems to be where I am right now.

Wishing You Fire

I pass on to you a reflection I wrote 3 years ago as the benediction of an Advent event. Christina Rossetti’s poem “In the Bleak Midwinter” is a favorite of mine. I have insisted that the Advent hymn of the same name, using her poem as the hymn text, be played and sung at my memorial service even if the service takes place on a hot summer day. While I don’t quote the poem in this reflection, only referring to it instead, I hope you will find it and read it. And perhaps sing it in church this Advent. And if you perchance attend my memorial service (years from now I hope), and the hymn is not on the program, go to the pastor or organist and insist that you know I want it played. And meanwhile may “love’s fire” be in you your whole life long. 

 *****

One winter day in 19^th century London, probably sometime around the year 1871, a woman sat at her desk looking out her window. Outside a chill wind was blowing. The earth was frozen hard. The puddles from London’s winter rains had turned to ice. The sky was an overcast grey, much like wintertime Seattle. Most likely it was the season of Advent.

The woman suffered Grave’s disease, an autoimmune illness with symptoms that include anxiety, irritability, fatigue, & irregular heart beat among others. She had recently turned 40. She had committed her life to certain causes: opposition to war & military aggression; opposition to animal experimentation, which she considered cruelty to animals; opposition to American slavery; opposition to the exploitation of young girls in prostitution. She worked for 12 years in the Saint Mary Magdalene “house of charity,” a refuge for former prostitutes.

She was a devout Christian. Her hope in life and death, as her poems clearly reveal, was Jesus. Her thoughts that winter day must have turned to Bethlehem, in another era, when it would also be winter at least according to our traditional Church calendar; and the snow might be falling…sometimes it snows in Bethlehem near Christmas time.

Thinking about Christ’s coming into the world as a baby born in a stable on a cold winter night, she understood that something so great was happening that neither earth nor heaven could grasp its meaning or hold its reality for long. Yet God was doing it for us.

Her poem, “In the Bleak Midwinter” expresses her conviction that our only appropriate response to what God was doing in the birth of Jesus is to give our hearts to that one who was the child of Bethlehem.

Christina Rossetti has another poem, less well known, that is our farewell blessing today. It is called “None Other Lamb.”

“None other Lamb, none other Name,

None other hope in Heaven or earth or sea,

None other hiding place…

None besides Thee!

My faith burns low, my hope burns low;

Only my heart’s desire cries out in me…

Cries out to Thee.

Love’s fire Thou art, however cold I be.”

May Jesus Christ our Savior be “love’s fire” in you for the rest of your days.

“Watchful Waiting”

“Keep awake therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour.” Matthew 25:13

I intentionally write this blog entry three days before the MRI that will reveal whether or not the 10% that remains of the brain tumor in my head has vanished. The other possibilities are that it has remained stable, has begun to shrink again after eight months of stability, or has begun to grow.

I wrote in my last blog entry about being tired of the tumor’s threat hanging over me; and of my request that my home church and my Facebook friends pray my December 10 MRI would show the tumor gone.

This photo is the Mercer Island Presbyterian congregation surrounding Jinny and me, and laying hands on us while Pastor Sheri prayed that specific prayer.

She also prayed that God would take away my sense of dullness (which I had referred to), and would turn me into an exuberant extrovert. Someone said that would be a greater miracle than the tumor’s disappearance. That wag is probably correct.

As the moment approaches when we will see the new MRI, I am having many thoughts about how I and others will respond to whatever the MRI shows. I acknowledged in the last entry that I am not praying this prayer with great confidence. What I know for sure is that God could totally take the tumor away. “Just say the word and my servant will be healed,” the military officer said to Jesus. (Matthew 8:8) The officer knew about military authority and command. He recognized in Jesus one with authority to command and healing would happen. I am totally certain that Jesus has the authority to completely heal me. I am not nearly so confident that he will use his authority in response to our prayers. We know from our experience of life that he often does not. We can’t know his reasons why.

So I go into Monday’s doctor appointment preparing myself to see the tumor still present. I remind myself to also be ready to be surprised by joy. I lack the confidence (or maybe ego?) to say I am certain of the outcome ahead of time. But I will never give up believing in the love of God, who could do the startling thing; who could reveal in the present moment here on earth, the good we will experience when we are finally present with God in heaven.

Will that perfect love of heaven touch and heal me sometime before Monday’s MRI? Or is it already done? Who could honestly say for sure? I hope so. I believe with certainty that it is possible. But I know neither the mind nor the wisdom of God enough to say now what Monday will reveal, other than that God will be faithful, and that it will be God and no other power that has the last word.

Meanwhile the scriptures and the stories Jesus told urge us again and again to wait with anticipation for the good that is coming, the good that only God can bring. Watch and wait. Don’t get dull. Don’t quit anticipating. We don’t know the day or the hour when God will act decisively to bring a lot of joy and to make many things a lot better. Don’t let the waiting lead to loss of faith in God’s goodness. In the analogy from Matthew 25, don’t let the flame or the light flicker and grow dim. The “bridegroom” will arrive, and there will be great celebration. I am hoping for a personal version of that promise next Monday. If he delays or is delayed, it is no reflection on his compassion and love. If he shows up, it will be the talk of the town in my circles for years to come.

Praying Crazy

Some of you already know through Facebook that I recently asked for very specific prayers about the brain tumor in my head. I ask the congregation at Mercer Island Presbyterian to pray a specific prayer on my behalf, which they did last Sunday, with a laying on of hands and anointing with oil. Through Facebook I asked others to also pray the same prayer at as close to the same time as possible. Many did.

The specific prayer is that what is left of the tumor, the final 10%, will go away; and that my MRI scheduled for the afternoon of Dec. 10 will show that it has disappeared.

For new readers to this blog, I was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor on April 1, 2011. The statistical average survival time was stated to be 18 to 24 months. I began chemotherapy treatments (4 pills for 5 nights in a row; 23 days off; repeat) right away. In the first year of treatment the tumor shrank by 90%, which was a surprising and unusually positive result. In the eight months since, the tumor has not shrunk but has remained stable.

My doctor is thrilled with my response to treatment. I am his remarkable patient, his outlier defying the statistics. It certainly looks at the moment that I will outlive the 24 months.

The bad news is that medically this tumor is always fatal. Eventually it begins to grow again; and eventually it can’t be stopped. So I am not as thrilled as my doctor, though I am deeply grateful for the response to chemotherapy I have experienced. I could be in hospice care by now. Instead I am fully functional, looking good (the thing people say to me most often) and feeling strong.

I attribute my good response partly to my body’s unique reaction to the right chemotherapy, and partly to the fact that people all over the world are praying for my recovery, many of them praying daily. As a person of faith, I believe that God has done an intervention on my behalf, making me a remarkable patient, a statistical outlier.
God has done an intervention, but has not yet given a cure. Thus my specific prayer request…my request for the cure and for the evidence of it in the December 10 MRI.

I made the request because I found myself feeling gradually weighed down by the constant awareness of a fatal tumor in my head. It is something I am aware of many times each day. I am tired of that awareness. Sometimes dealing with it makes me feel dull, without energy or motivation. I decided early in this process that I have no fear of death, and in fact could build an enthusiasm for departing soon for heaven. But I also decided for various reasons (see previous blogs) that I want to remain in this world for several more years if God will grant me those years. So my ultimate hope is in God rather than medicine. And much of my journey with God and a brain tumor the last 20 months has been spiritually positive.

But I don’t like feeling dull. I want to be enthused about the opportunities brought to me by whatever days and years I have left. I have good reasons to be enthused. Dull is not something that would be fun to live with as a consistent companion.

So I made the specific prayer request. Can we please be done with this tumor? Can I be the first one ever who had this tumor, and then it went away? Can I die in 10 or 20 years of something completely different? A friend from Vietnam emailed to remind me of the words Jesus spoke to his disciples about their fatally ill friend Lazarus, “This illness is not unto death; rather it is for the glory of God.” She said she felt that verse was for me. Lord, can it please be for me?

I was talking with a small group that prays for me during chemo week, and I asked them what they thought of the idea of requesting this specific prayer. One of the group said “I don’t think I have the faith to pray that prayer with confidence.” I said “Neither do I.” In fact I am already preparing myself for the moment that we look at the MRI with my doctor and see that the tumor remains.

But we also decided that it is ok once in a while to pray irrational prayers, prayers that make us feel foolish, crazy prayers, prayers we have little confidence will be answered with the specific answer we requested. Prayers that give God an opportunity to surprise us with joy.

There are risks to such prayers of course, risks of disappointment, of creating a personal crisis in faith, of forming wrong conclusions about God’s care or lack of it.

Still I decided to ask the Mercer Island Presbyterian congregation and many of you to pray this specific prayer. And they and you said yes.

Now we wait.

At 3:15 Pacific Time on December 10 we will find out how God answered. I will let you know.

Meanwhile we have this: “But ask in faith, never doubting…for the doubter…must not expect to receive anything from the Lord.” (James 1:6-8)

And we have this: “Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.’” (2 Corinthians 12:8-9)

And we have this: “Which one of you, if your child asks for bread, will give a stone? Or if the child asks for a fish, will give a snake? …How much more will your Father in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:9-11)

Presbyterians (my clan) are not very good at praying crazy, and so we don’t do it often, at least not publically. Maybe if we did it more often we could sharpen our definition of what is crazy and what is not.

Call me crazy, but I want to believe in a God who could (might not, but could) answer a prayer that was not prayed with the confidence James requires. But still received the answer Jesus spoke of in Matthew’s gospel.

If the answer is similar to the one the Apostle Paul received in 2 Corinthians, I guess I can live and die with that one too. But I would prefer to be surprised by joy.

“We Have Come Far”

Kicking Bird said it to Dances with Wolves near the end of the movie, “We have come far—you and me.”

My 91 year old mother expressed a similar idea to me last year. She said something like, “For a poor country kid who grew up in the rat house, you have traveled far and done surprising things.”

The rat house is the house my parents rented for $10 a month in Mercer County, Pennsylvania in the late 40’s and early 50’s, before I was 11 years old. The rats lived in the cellar, and I had pretty much forgotten them, though their presence created a familiarity with rats that I have lived with all my life.

The poverty also shaped me, in good ways I think. Those were days when many were poor, and at least we kids were usually unaware of our poverty. Now that I am grown, I can see poverty in the world and not make assumptions about it or hold myself aloof. I find it easy to respect whom others might wrongly look down upon. In my mental landscape poverty does not cancel human dignity. The poor are not alien to my world. They belong as much as I do. And are as welcome as I.

But I was a boy with a temper. There was an anger within me that under the right circumstances could have turned me toward a bitter and destructive life. I felt the anger enough that I know that I could have turned in that direction. I have thought often in my life of who I could have become, and am thankful that I did not.

The fact that I turned in a better direction has to do with the “we” in my story of “We have come far.” Without getting all religious about it, the significant factor in my choosing a better way is Jesus, whom I came to know with a lot of help from my mother and not much help from the church. My mother has always experienced a practical vividness in her relationship with the living God. And the church didn’t get much chance with me before I was in college and a girl I was interested in told me she would not date me unless I went to church with her. (I am still with her 50 years later.)

The church did give me this—an understanding of what it meant when Jesus said “If someone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile.” (Matthew 5:41)

I heard those words at a college retreat when I was 17, and had a moment of compelling clarity. I suddenly knew that Jesus had a wisdom that could change the world, if people would follow him and learn from him. And I understood that my life would move toward bitterness or toward compassion, depending on whether I followed him and learned from him.

Looking back all these years later, in this reflective period of life brought on by brain cancer, I am deeply thankful for that decision made 50 years ago, grateful for the road taken and the road not taken, for who I became and who I could have become but did not.

Looking back, I can see that my life has been rich with experiences and friendships and cherished moments and perhaps with the kind of achievements that mean something in the kingdom of God.

When I am dying, I will want to say to that college girl who took me to church and has been my partner and friend ever since, “We have come far, you and me.” I will say it with gratitude.

And I hope that when I die, the one whom I have chosen to follow will say the same to me. We have come far. He and I will both know I could have gone a different direction. But I did not. This direction has been very good. And I am grateful.

Even Though We Die, We Live (John 11:25)

I was home visiting my mother a few years ago. She was 86 at the time, growing more physically frail every year, but more spiritually ready to leave this world and enter the world to come.

We were looking at some old photos that a cousin had found and sent to her on the internet.

One was a photo of a middle aged woman in an old farm dress, coming around the corner of my grandmother’s house with her arms raised, as though she intended to jump out and startle someone. Her raised arms were blocking the view of her face, and I asked my mother who this woman was.

She said, “Why that’s Grandma Sewall.  She was full of fun, you know. She had the best sense of humor and a great love of laughter.”

Well I didn’t know. I had only heard the stories of my mother’s conflict with Grandma over child rearing. I had only known my grandmother as an elderly widow, over-weight, slowed down by cataracts and diabetes, shuffling from one room to another in her old farm house.

I had no idea that she was a woman full of fun, with a great sense of humor and a love of laughter. I never knew her that way…

But I will.

One day I will know her, not as a woman in her old age, in her declining years.  But as the glorious person that God had in mind when God created her… The person that she, in fact, is right now in the eternal world.

The experience of seeing that old photo, and hearing my mother’s description of my grandmother as a lover of laughter—something my mother knew and assumed I knew, but that I still would not know if our cousin had not sent the photo—set me to thinking about how little any of us know about the generations that came before us.

They are our own flesh and blood, and yet we don’t know them.

Even our own parents, if they live a long time, we remember mostly in their elderly, frail years.  We do not, for the most part, remember them as they might wish to be remembered.

We experience this phenomenon every time we attend a memorial service for someone who lived a long life—and look at the picture collages that include their wedding photos and the pictures with their small children, pictures taken when they were young.

I want to share two thoughts that should bring great hope and great comfort in the times when we grieve for someone we love who has died.

These thoughts would have no basis in fact if we did not know the promises of God to give us eternal life in Jesus Christ. But we know those promises. I do not need to persuade those who read these words.

That’s why the Apostle Paul said, “We grieve, but not as people who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13).

Here is the first thought, a reminder of something that you already know.

These frail bodies…these bodies that grow old and lose their energy and wear out, are not the bodies we will live in for eternity.

This is only the tent. The physical person you will be in heaven is so much more…the “house”compared with this “tent” (2 Corinthians 5:1ff).

This is only the seed that goes into the ground and dies. You will be the full grain, the whole field…when you have put on your spiritual body…immortal…imperishable (1 Corinthians 15:35ff).

Your youth will be renewed like the eagles (Isaiah 40:31).

And spiritually, every flaw of character, every proneness to sin that held you back and pulled    you down, will have vanished, like a bad dream when the morning comes  (1 John 3:2).

Your former self will be a shadow of what you are.

We cannot imagine the glory of what we will be…forever.

Some people we only knew when they are old. Others we can remember in their younger days. But only with eyes of faith do we see people who have died to this world as they are now. Even our small glimpse of this glory should fill our hearts with joy.

God is so faithful, and so good to love us so well.

Here is my second thought.

There is a phrase used in the Old Testament when people die.   The phrase is: “He was gathered to his people.” “She was gathered to her people.”

The Bible says that Abraham was gathered to his people (Genesis 25:8). Sarah was gathered to her people. Ishmael, Isaac, Rebecca, Rachael, Jacob…gathered to their people. Aaron, Moses, whole generations…gathered to their people.

Genesis 49:33 says that when Jacob had ended his charge to his sons, he drew up his feet into the bed, breathed his last, and was gathered to his people.

When we die, we are gathered to our people.

From this side, keeping vigil at the bedside of someone we love, dying seems such a lonely process.

It is lonely because we are already anticipating that they will be gone, and we will go on without them.

It is lonely because we can’t go with them, and we imagine them going on alone.

We have such an individualistic mentality in our culture. We think of everything in terms of one person. And so dying must be about going on alone.

But this is not so. We do not go on alone. We are gathered to our people.

When my father lay dying of cancer, he told my mother that in the night his brothers were coming to see him…brothers who had already gone before him into heaven. One of those brothers had Downs Syndrome while he was on earth. My mother asked if he still had Downs Syndrome. My father said, “You could tell that he used to have it.”

When we die, the “cloud of witnesses” (Hebrews 12:1) draws near. And we are gathered to our people.

I will know my grandmother for the person full of laughter that she was before I knew her in her frailty.

There are generations of “your people” whom you have never known. But they are your people, your clan. They are your family. They will welcome you home when you leave this world. And you will know them.

You will know them, not as they were in this life, struggling as we do, with human frailty and shortcomings and sin.

But rather as they have become through God’s transforming power.

Could it be that dying, rather than being the lonely experience we imagine it to be, is more an experience of family and welcome than anything we have ever known?

God is faithful, keeping a covenant of loyalty and love to a thousand generations of those who love him.  (Deuteronomy5:10)

When we die, the scriptures say “We will be gathered to our ancestors.” And in case you are tempted to believe this phrase is merely a euphemistic way of saying “We die,” remember what Jesus said to those disputing with him about the reality of resurrection and life in the eternal world.

He said, “God is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is God not of the dead, but of the living”(Matthew 22: 32).  So Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are alive.

They were gathered to their people. And they are alive.

You and I have more of our people on the other side than here in this world, generations of our own people on the other side.

So it must be true that dying will never be a lonely experience. We are gathered to our people.  We are in the presence of our God.  We are changed into all God created us to be, in the twinkling of an eye (1 Corinthians 15:52).

Then we will see with new eyes, and really for the first time, how good and faithful is our God.

Waiting for God to Speak

“He looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed.” Exodus 3:2

For me the approach of the next MRI appointment is a little like waiting for God to speak. Since I believe that the cancer in my brain has something to do with how God is working in my life (see previous blog entries), the MRI imaging can, in theory, tell me a little about the journey God is taking me on. Imaging that shows tumor shrinkage might indicate I will be alive on the earth for a longer time. Tumor growth might signal that my last six months have begun. Tumor stability, as I interpret it, means that God is not telling me what lies ahead and for how long…and that I have more to learn about living in God’s grace, about walking daily with “the evidence of things not seen.”

I find myself dreading the next MRI, and the doctor appointment afterward that reveals what God has spoken or kept silent about. Only one imaging result is what I really want. I want relief from the possibility that hangs over me that I might be starting down the road toward a death that my doctor says will be pretty ugly. I want to spare my loved ones that ugliness. And I want reassurance that I will complete the exciting things I have been called to do in retirement. I want to die twenty years from now of something other than this brain tumor. And I want to know, as much as it is possible to know in this world, that I will have those years and will fulfill my purpose.

The imaging news I want is that the tumor has shrunk again, or has disappeared. My doctor believes the tumor is not likely to disappear. He has never seen it happen. And since it has been stable for several months without shrinking, he believes it is unlikely to shrink any more.

Still I believe it is quite possible that this tumor may not kill me, both because so many people are praying for me, and because my best reading of the “the evidence of things not seen” in my life indicates I have an unfulfilled purpose in my life on earth.

Recently I sent my mother a biography of accomplishments in ministry that Union University of California, where I am president, had prepared about me. She left a voice mail saying she had no idea I had done so much in my life, and that she could certainly see now why the barn door had not squashed me when I was a little boy. And why the cancer is not going to kill me. I called her back and we began reminiscing about the several times in my life that I could have been killed…

…when I was a toddler the barn door fell off its track on top of me but I was not crushed because a heavy rain had turned the ground to a soft mixture mud and cow manure; and my father and uncles were right there to lift the door and pull me out of the muck

…when at about age four I climbed a forty foot ladder to the barn roof thinking I could help with the reroofing project

…when, as a teenager I was riding in the car with my father, who was so drunk he was bouncing off the curb on both sides of the street, and yet passed between a parked car and a speeding 18 wheeler coming toward us in a space so narrow there must have been only inches to spare

…when as a college student I was working on a hotel construction site, directing the crane below where to lower the huge industrial sized bucket of cement that was swinging above us, and using myself as the target, when the cable snapped and the bucket came crashing into the center of a circle of 6 cement finishers, taking the floor out from under us, and yet no one was injured…

…when Jinny and I were nearly killed by a speeding car that turned directly in front of us as we drove in our Volkswagen beetle to our honeymoon on our wedding day

…and the other times that we have forgotten and weren’t too interested in dredging up

My mother observed that her other children did not have such a list of narrow escapes. Her conclusion—that God had God’s own reasons for keeping me alive. And that God would continue to do so despite the brain cancer.

I am hoping she is right. And as I think about it, at least she is right about this. I am in God’s hands. I could have died already on several occasions. And I am still here. It isn’t chance or good luck. That would be harder for me to believe than that God has intervened repeatedly, and with purpose.

A week ago was 18 months since I was diagnosed and told that the average survival time for this tumor is 18 to 24 months. Now the doctor says I am doing so much better than any patient he has ever seen that he has no idea of how to predict what will happen next. I am his “outlier,” too far “off the charts” to be predictable.

Still, I want to see the tumor disappear. And until that happens I am looking for other images to help me understand God’s purposes in what appears very much to be an intervention (I am the outlier), but not a cure.

Some have suggested the Apostle Paul’s “thorn in the flesh,” (2 Corinthians 12:7) which he asked three times that God remove. But God said “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.” And it is true that I have learned to depend much more on God’s strength rather than my effort. Now I depend on remarkable responses from God, and see them more often than I used to.

But recently I have been thinking of the story of Moses and the burning bush (Exodus 3). Moses was tending sheep in the desert, and he saw a bush that was burning but was not consumed. The scripture says it was an angel of the Lord that was appearing to Moses in the flame, but Moses did not know it.  I had the thought last week that, if I must have this cancer, I want to be like the bush that was burning but was not consumed. That is, I want to be the guy who has the brain tumor but does not die. It is ok with me to have the tumor, if God has a purpose. But let me keep being the outlier. Let me live until my purpose is complete; and then give me some extra time to enjoy the beautiful things of this world. After that, I will be content to go home.

Still, when the time comes, I prefer to die of something else. Concerning the brain cancer, I want it to be clear to everyone who knows my story that it did not kill me; that God was in charge; that God preserved me one more time. I want to be like the bush that burned but was not consumed.

And on the rest of this journey, for however long, and however it ends, I want to keep remembering and keep experiencing the words God said to Moses…”The place where you are standing is holy ground.”