Cancer never really goes away. No matter how hard you try, you can’t forget about it for more than a day or so at a time. It impacts your life on so many levels. For me, it was a stark reminder that I am getting old and that one day soon, the rest of me will start failing as well. Cancer will, in some way, touch the core fears of almost anyone. Fear Of Failure has always been the strongest in my life. In some ways it feels like I have let down my wife and failed as a husband, in some ways it almost feels like I have failed as a person. For a perfectionist, cancer is the flaw in the façade. It is the reminder that we (I) are weak, frail and prone to failure. It drags at you and slows you down emotionally and adds an element of uncertainty into your life.
For some of us, this can be a good thing. It forces reliance on God. It teaches us humility and reminds us Who is in charge. For those that can see past the disease to the Giver of Life, it builds a deeper and closer relationship with our Lord. It helps us (me) recognize what are the essentials of life, to focus on what really matters. Now I won’t claim that I am even approaching perfection in this area, but I do know that my commitment to the things of God has increased this last year. I find myself a little more emotionally fragile while at the same time stronger and more resilient.
The treatments left a lasting mark on me physically. You can’t expose your body to radiation like that and expect that nothing will change. Perhaps that is one reason that I can’t really forget the cancer – the effects will linger long after the disease has been eradicated.
Song of Songs 7:11-12 "Come, my beloved, let us go out into the country, Let us spend the night in the villages. "Let us rise early and go to the vineyards; Let us see whether the vine has budded And its blossoms have opened, And whether the pomegranates have bloomed. There I will give you my love.
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