Life Before Death

A guest post by my dad

Last week, I wrote about a prayerful interaction with low back pain that helped me notice and release some of the weight of uncertainty that my body has been storing. One thing I didn’t mention in the post is that the area of my back where I feel the most discomfort is the same spot my dad experiences pain due to cancer. There’s an undeniable connection there that feels inexplicable.

Recently, we’ve been carving out a morning a week to write together. This practice has provided an energizing rhythm for us, despite the draining nature of many of the circumstances that surround us both. So I’m honored that for this week’s post, my dad has decided to share a little of his own recent story. Enjoy!

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“The scans are bad.” At more than one appointment, these were the opening words of my kind but curt oncologist. Even though I have been a Christian since the age of 20, and a pastor since the age of 27, those words were jarring. The actual diagnosis of a very aggressive and rare form of thyroid cancer had been confirmed one year earlier. Four months into a retirement in which I wanted to be “loose change in God’s pocket,” (available to God and available to people), I was thrown into an unwanted full-time job of facing what is now metastatic thyroid cancer. The medical litany was unrelenting: surgery to remove my thyroid, 33 rounds of external beam radiation, radioactive iodine therapy secluded in my bedroom for 5 days, two surgeries on my upper spine, two more rounds of radiation, and now an experimental combination of strong cancer meds.

Somehow as I write these words, I am doing remarkably well. Really. On the inside where we all really live. “Keep your heart with all diligence, for out of it flow all the issues of life” (Proverbs 4:23). God has imparted Life to me on this side of the grave. “The scans are bad.” Yes. But I am very much alive.

This is not denial or pious faith. This is no empty boast. This is certainly not a statement of my gallant efforts to “stay positive.” It is – and was – by grace. Sheer grace. Shortly after my original surgery to remove the thyroid, I read over the 13 page pathology report, peppered with the word “metastatic.” I felt like I had suddenly entered another world. A world of doom. I’m a big baseball fan. So when I retired at the age of 70 I had thought, “I am probably in the 7^th inning of life. Ok, it’s time to “stretch,” and then to enjoy life and finish well. But now I thought, maybe not. Maybe I’m in the 9^th inning and how many outs?

I remember the visceral fear and anxiety that pierced my gut and hung around unwanted for weeks. I remember the sadness of life being cut short, the paralysis of body and spirit I felt. Would I even be around to witness the birth of our first grandchild, due in four months? Even before thyroid surgery, I had been diagnosed with severe spinal stenosis, and now after surgery found that I could barely walk. My days were reduced to a “Ground Hog Day” existence, sitting in my favorite blue chair but feeling vacant. I entered my first and worst “dark night of the soul.”

At times it seemed unending. But then little things began to chip away at the dark places. The solicitous and sacrificial care of my wife and children. The prayers of so many people in the churches and larger community, several of whom came to the house and laid hands on me for healing. Reading the Psalms, especially the ones where people question God with anger and dismay. The almost random suggestion of a medication that changed my sleep from 2-3 hours per night to 8 hours. Wow, sleep deprivation skews everything! Catastrophizing began to give way to objectivity.

Then one night I was moved to write in my journal. My journal had been a daily outlet and friend, but on this night the thoughts and feelings just poured out and seemed to write themselves. As I began to write, I saw what was in my heart and it surprised me with hope. I wrote: “I just said out loud to the Lord, ‘It is better for me to respond to my present situation with healthy anger rather than perpetual sadness, as natural as that may feel. I simply cannot and will not tolerate a “Ground Hog Day” existence any more! What can I DO to creatively express healthy anger within my limitations? There are so many things I cannot do, but what CAN I do?’”

These were the top three ways I answered that question. 1. Try walking, just do it. Trust God! (3 minutes the next day grew into 3 miles 2 months later). 2. Stop visualizing or imagining my condition as permanent. Act as if it will improve. 3. Practice thinking and making decisions out of faith, not fear. Let God set the limits, not you. Over 2 hours later the darkness began to lift palpably.

A couple of weeks later some friends came to the house to pray for me. A woman I barely knew spoke a word of prophecy as she prayed. Reflecting on the biblical story of Jesus healing the paralyzed man who was lowered through the roof to the feet of Jesus (Mark 2:1-12), she said: “Steve, I see Jesus saying to you, “Rise up! Take up your mat and walk!” In one sentence those words captured and confirmed exactly what I had been trying to do.

For so many days on this journey, I had felt paralyzed both physically and spiritually. But family and friends had prayed for me, and in a sense, had lowered me to the feet of Jesus. Now Jesus was saying to me, “Steve, rise up! Take up your mat and walk.” In that biblical story, Jesus was the source of the healing. But the paralyzed man had to rise up and receive it. Somehow the healing power of Jesus is linked to our active, willing response. I also remembered that the words “rise up” are directly related to the word “resurrection.” Could it be that my “rising up” could be a small kind of resurrection?

Life before death?

Two weeks later I made a stunning discovery that further fueled my hope. I looked back in my journal one day and realized that my “dark night of the soul” had lasted exactly 40 days. 40 days! I suddenly remembered that throughout the Bible the number 40 is very important, most often linked with a wilderness testing period. The wilderness is a hard place. Israel in the desert for 40 years. Jesus battling Satan in the wilderness for 40 days. But on the other side of that testing, invariably there is hope and the renewal of strength.

This discovery encouraged me to believe that my experience of adversity was not random, but part of the same pattern that God had used for centuries to grow his people and deepen their faith. It had not been wasted. The scripture had given me a frame of reference to interpret my experience.

God seemed to say, “Steve, you have been through the wilderness, a dark night of the soul, but you have never been alone. And now by my hand you are coming out stronger than if this had never happened.” It was true. My diagnosis had not changed, but I was changing. I was now on the other side of the wilderness, a new beginning. A “this life” resurrection.

But what would this look like? Many things, but here’s the essence. A few months later I was de-cluttering my stuff. Especially my books, 1 by 1, from 3000 down to 2000. The very last one I came to was barely accessible. I rescued it on my hands and knees. I didn’t even know I owned it. But I had heard of it and even quoted from it. Love, Medicine, and Miracles by Dr Bernie Siegel, a surgeon from Yale.

The book describes the growing “humanity” of his practice as a surgeon. But especially he informally but carefully documents the common traits he observed in exceptional cancer patients. Wow! Have you ever felt that God handpicked a book for you to read?

In the very beginning he wrote:

The most important reason I wrote this book was to make people aware that they were not statistics or probabilities, but possibilities...When you talk to people who don’t die when they’re supposed to, they all sound alike. They all accept the fact that they are going to die someday – but they set out to LIVE until that day. These people didn’t set out not to die. They set out to live until they died. The message is to choose life in this moment, not to try and live forever.

So, I am choosing Life everyday. I am embracing my calling to be loose change in God’s pocket. I am focusing not on what I can’t do, but on what I can do. Not on the uncertainty of the future, but on the possibilities right in front of me now.

Interestingly, when this is my mindset, it actually affects my body. I am energized. Bethany has written eloquently about how her body has spoken to her, even instructed her. I too have felt my body’s hearty “approval” when I choose Life. It’s another small reminder of life before death, with so much more yet to discover…

Now when I receive bad news like “the scans are bad,” I pause to realize there’s another reality going on. There’s a new possibility of Life. A few weeks ago, I got bad news. I have barely had a voice since August and have also had great difficulty swallowing. So I had surgery last week to stretch out my esophagus and examine my vocal cords. The swallowing will probably improve, but the vocal cords may be permanently compromised from my strong cancer meds.

In my frustration, with periodic bouts of self-pity, my daughter Bethany spoke to me with some feisty encouragement: “Well, Dad, you can’t talk too well, but you can write! It’s time to write!”

It was another reminder not to focus on my limitations, but on the possibilities.

So, with humble gratitude, this article came about thanks to my talented daughter’s firm but gracious challenge. Without saying it directly, she reminded me one more time that there is life before death. Choose Life, Steve.

This was the first time we got together to talk about writing. Over ice cream!