cancer

Awestruck Wonder

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“Filled with wonder
Awestruck wonder
At the mention of Your name
Jesus, Your name is power
Breath and living water
Such a marvelous mystery” (Jennie Lee Riddle).

I listened to Revelation Song this morning and was struck again by the power and beauty of these words taken almost directly from Revelation 4 and Ezekiel 1. I can almost picture in my head the saints and angels gathered around the throne of God in perpetual worship and praise.

Two words jumped out at me this time: awestruck wonder. It reminds me of a phrase that I learned from my old church. When you have a WOW moment, you’re left WithOut Words. It’s like all the best moments of your life combined and then multiplied by thousands and millions.

Heaven will be one continuous state of awestruck wonder. It will never get old for us or become something that we eventually take for granted. It won’t ever be something we get tired of hearing or singing. It will be like starting a new book where every chapter gets better and better and it never ends, as C. S. Lewis puts it in The Last Battle, the last of the Chronicles of Narnia series.

When life gets difficult and the days seem longer than we can bear down here, it helps to remember that awestruck wonder is coming. We will go from anxiety and suffering to nonstop uncontainable joy. Everything that could possibly cause us to worry or fret or that brings us pain will no longer exist.

I eagerly await that day. Even now, I catch glimpses of the glory that’s coming. I have moments of joy and short seasons of peace and rest that remind me that the toil and heartache won’t last forever but will one day end. There will be no more night or cancer or AIDS or dementia or anything else evil and bad. We will be fully healed and restored and will know fully just as we have been fully known and loved by this God and Jesus that will be in our midst for eternity.

Ash Wednesday 2026

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“I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe in is the one Nietzsche ridiculed as ‘God on the Cross.’ In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples and stood respectfully before the statue of Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time after a while I have had to turn away. And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in Godforsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us” (John Stott).

Lent has officially started. I’m a newcomer to this season of fasting and repentance that leads up to Easter Sunday, but I’m already a fan. I’ve gone through several years where I give up social media for Lent and found myself not missing it as much as I thought I would.

But Lent isn’t primarily about giving up or abstaining. It’s really about preparing your heart and mind for Easter Week, from Maundy Thursday to Good Friday and leading up to glorious Easter Sunday. It helps remind me that Easter really is more than baskets of candy and bunnies (although I’m not against those myself).

Easter is about God in the flesh taking the form of a servant and becoming obedient to the point of death, as the Apostle Paul puts it in Philippians 2. Instead of me and you dying deservedly for our own sins, Jesus took up the cross and bore our sins on His own body. Instead we get His righteousness and when God sees us, He doesn’t see our flaws but Christ’s perfection.

The best part of course is Resurrection Sunday when Jesus rose from the grave and forever defeated satan, hell, death, and the grave. There is now nothing to fear for anyone who has been made a new creation by Christ. We know that no matter what happens, the worst part will never be the last part because of the resurrection. As Tim Keller put it, the resurrection means that everything is going to be okay.

Cancer won’t have the last word. Dementia won’t have the last word. Terrorism won’t have the last word. Not even death will have the last word. One day, Jesus will descend and every grave will open up and we will all rise to be with Him in the air. That will be the best day ever for anyone who has trusted in Jesus for salvation.

My prayer for anyone who is observing Lent this year is that we will be more inclined and attuned to the voice of God than ever before. I’m praying that we will experience more deeply than ever before the glorious reality of the empty tomb and the risen Christ.

It may seem like a perpetual night of hopelessness these days with so much doom and gloom over every headline and social media feed, but Easter Sunday’s comin’!

Praying for My Pastor

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Just to clarify, I go to a multi-campus church and my campus pastor is Aaron Bryant. The senior pastor of the main campus, Brentwood Baptist Church, is Jay Strother. Recently, Jay announced to all the campuses that he has been diagnosed with an cancerous abdominal tumor.

I normally don’t post things like this, but I believe that this is a time when God’s people should rally to pray for one of their own. This is when we step up for a man of God who has faithfully served the Church for over 20 years.

I’m praying and believing in faith for complete healing. I believe that God can remove every trace of the tumor, either through the capable hands of physicians or through miraculous means.

I’m praying that this sickness won’t end in death but it will be a glorious opportunity for the gospel to go forth as people see God’s hand in this.

I’m praying that God will strengthen Jay and his family through this time of testing and that he will come out stronger on the other side.

I’m praying that there will be people in heaven, including doctors and nurses and many others, thanks to Jay’s testimony of how he will use this trial as a means of communicating the gospel of Christ through both words and actions. They will see a peace about him and want to know where that peace comes from and where to find it.

I believe God is able to to immeasurably more than we can ask or think. I believe that whatever the outcome the Kingdom of God will continue to increase in Middle Tennessee and throughout the world.

I ultimately believe that either way is a win-win because to live is Christ, and to die is gain.

Thank you, Jay, for your leadership and your pastor’s heart for your people. I and many others will be faithfully praying for you throughout this season and waiting to hear what amazing things God will do in and through you.

Live Gladly

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“The greatest honor we can give Almighty God is to live gladly because of the knowledge of his love”(Julian of Norwich).

I think one of the biggest turnoffs to faith is people who profess Christ but spend most of their days with sour faces and unpleasant dispositions. If you truly have been made alive by the grace of God, shouldn’t you be filled with joy?

I get that people have bad days, but even on the bad days there is good. Even the worst days have a little bit of good in them. I don’t think people should fake being happy when their lives are falling apart, but I think that people who know the peace of Jesus should live like it and live like it matters because it does.

I knew a man once who was a former pastor and a greeter at a church event I attended weekly. I found out that he was dying from cancer, but every time I asked him how he was doing, he would say he was fine. He never complained or whined. He showed up as long as he was able and served with a smile because he knew that cancer would not have the last word.

Looking back, I feel a bit ashamed because I know I probably complained about my life to a man who was in a battle way worse than anything I’ve ever faced. Still, he was gracious to me. He showed me Jesus in the midst of his own pain and suffering.

My prayer is that I can be like that. I hope I can exude joy so that people around me who don’t know Jesus will want to know where that joy comes from. That’s actually my prayer for all of us. May we be living billboards of grace whose lives preach just as good of a sermon as any words we could ever use. May our words and deeds (not one or the other but both) tell of a good God and a gracious Savior who can save anybody at any time.

Telling Stories

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“Child,’ said the Lion, ‘I am telling you your story, not hers. No one is told any story but their own” (C.S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy).

I’m beginning to understand that we all have different stories. We also have different seasons and struggles. I am in the middle of a career transition. I overheard where someone else has a parent dealing with a cancer diagnosis. Yet someone else I know has struggled within the past year with mental health issues.

Each story is different. Each struggle is unique. It’s no good for me to compare my story with someone else’s and to either think that mine doesn’t matter because it’s not a potentially terminal diagnosis or that I have it way worse because someone else might have an ingrown toenail.

The Bible doesn’t say God never gives us more than we can handle. Often, it’s way beyond our capacity to bear so that we are forced to lean in on the Lord for daily strength. He does give us grace equal to the struggle. He does promise to be with us in each season.

In each story, the testimony is that God is able. I am in as much need of God’s continual grace and strength as anyone else alive right now on this planet. My need is no more or less than theirs. And my God is equally up to the task.

That’s the beauty of intercessory prayer. I enter into your story and you enter into mine. We share each others burdens and magnify the name of Jesus equally. Sometimes, we can speak words when the other has none or believe for the other when they can’t find the faith at the moment.

The best part is that God is always the hero of our stories and we can rest assured that in every case we know that God works all things together for good and for a happy ending.

An Attitude of Gratitude

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I found out that a friend of the family is currently walking through his own valley of the shadow of death in dealing with incurable cancer. To hear the word “cancer” coming out of the mouth of a doctor is scary enough, but to hear it preceded by “terminal” has to be frightening to an almost paralyzing degree.

Yet this friend of mine has faced this diagnosis with dignity and peace and an unswerving faith in the God who is still in the miracle business. While the odds seem insurmountable, I’m reminded yet again that what seems impossible to us isn’t even remotely difficult for God. Just ask any of the blind or lame men that Jesus healed. Or the lepers. Or Lazarus.

My friend said that it all starts with an attitude of gratitude. I truly believe that. A positive mental outlook is half the battle when dealing with a grim medical diagnosis.

Yet it’s more than that. This attitude of gratitude comes from the same place that allowed the Apostle Paul to pen the words that to live is Christ and to die is gain. It’s literally a win-win with Jesus.

Either my friend gets healed here and becomes a witness of God’s healing power or he is resurrected and finds ultimate healing and stands in front of Jesus to hear the words, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

When you think about it, we’re all terminal. After sin entered the world, death followed close behind and that proverbial hourglass started on each one of us. Unless Jesus comes back soon, all of you reading this will come to the place where you breathe your last.

Thanks to Jesus death will not have the final word. The grave is only temporary. The resurrection truly does mean that the worst thing is never the last thing and Jesus will have the final word in your story.

I’m praying for my friend for healing here and now knowing that no matter what happens, God is always good and we are always loved and that grace still wins in the end.

 

I’m Sick

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It’s official. I have a fever and I feel bad. I’m sick.

As much as I like to think that I am brave and stoic in the face of illness, I’m not. Actually, I’m a bit of an overdramatic martyr, truth be told. In my own passive aggressive way, I want everyone around me to be aware of the agony I’m in so they can feel appropriately sorry for me and buy me nice things and do nice things for me.

I regaled more than one person with the thrilling tale of how I drove from work with the A/C off and the vent on because of the chills. It was brutal. I didn’t even sweat one drop the whole way, even though I normally would have been perspiring like the pig that’s about to be bacon.

I made sure that people saw how I was shaking and shivering under all that nasty air conditioning when I was clearly not well. Anyone should have been able to tell that just by looking at my poor miserable face.

Yet here I am, sick. Honestly, I’ve felt much crummier and if this is the worst experience I go through, I’m doing alright.

I know several who are worse off than I. I have a friend who has been to doctor after doctor trying to diagnose and lingering illness that causes her to be extremely fatigued and with a weak immune system to fight off infection. I know several who are fighting courageous battles with cancer, including one who recently lost his battle.

Viewed the right way, illness can be an opportunity rather than solely a burden. You can always serve those who are worse off than you (and if you can’t physically serve, you can send encouraging notes or texts letting them know you are thinking and praying for them. Encouraging words tend to have the same effect on those who write them as with those who receive them.

You can use illness as a means to stand in solidarity with those around the world who suffer daily from hunger, malnourishment, disease, and abuse. You can use your aches and pains as a reminder to pray to the Healing God for those everywhere who live daily with chronic pain and diseases.

This just in. I’m not at death’s door just yet. I’ll probably be right as rain in a day or two with hardly a memory of all my dire suffering.

 

A Living Sermon

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There’s an older gentleman that I see on Mondays when I volunteer at Room in the Inn. He isn’t one of the homeless men who get bussed in. He’s one of the many volunteers who faithfully devote their Monday nights to serving these men.

I noticed one night that he was missing part of his right arm. I didn’t think a whole lot about it. I figured it was probably something to do with diabetes. Then I read this and my world got blown up (in a good way):

The Best Sermon I Never Preached

I don’t need to add anything to that. I teared up a bit as I heard one of the volunteers read this tonight at our last Room in the Inn for the season. The guy who read it got choked up.

The lessons for tonight are 1) don’t take any part of your life for granted, 2) appreciate each moment as the rare and precious gift that it is, and 3) remember that worship is still the best medicine there is for what ails you.

 

No More

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It’s official. I’m over celebrities dying. I’m over cancer. So far, we’ve said goodbye to David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Dan Haggerty, and Rene Angelil (Celine Dion’s manager and husband). That’s four too many.

Not even three weeks into 2016, I’m already over the fact that all of us have a terminal illness– that all of us will eventually die.

I’m also over Nashville traffic. Someone sneezes on I-24 and there’s a backup for miles and miles. Seriously? Because my favorite thing in life is to creep down the interstate at a snail’s pace. At least I have good tunes to keep me company in the drudgery.

I was thinking that in heaven there will be lots of no mores.

No more death. No more loss. No more tears. No more sorrow. No more pain.

No more traffic. No more waking up before sunrise. No more coffee pots that are empty because someone else drank all the coffee before I got there.

Okay, that last one is sketchy.

The best part of Jesus’ resurrection is that all the lies and hurt will eventually become extinct. No form of meanness or pettiness or jealousy or any of those other deadly sins will exist anymore.

Only what was best and truest and purest will last.

I like to think that the best things in this life are shadows of what’s to come. They’re echoes of the glories yet to come. All your best moments and memories pale in comparison to what’s coming.

In the meantime, I’m afraid of what I’ll see every time I check the msn.com website. I don’t want to hear of anyone else dying (especially from cancer) for a very long time.

If you have any good news, send it my way. I’m due for something positive these days.

Until then, I’ll drift off to sleep with some good music and hope for the future.

The end.

Something That Spoke to Me

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I read this yesterday and I’m still thinking about it. It’s what C. S. Lewis wrote after his wife died after battling cancer. What spoke to me so much wasn’t as much the grief (although I have known that all too well), but the part of not being able to hear God speak to you because you’re too frantic to listen. We’ve all at some point been stressed and overwhelmed to the point where we can’t hear what anybody else is saying to us, much less God.

Here’s what he said:

“Why has no one told me these things? How easily I might have misjudged another man in the same situation? I might have said, ‘He’s got over it. He’s forgotten his wife,’ when the truth was, ‘He remembers her better because he has partly got over it.’

Such was the fact. And I believe I can make sense out of it. You can’t see anything properly while your eyes are blurred with tears. You can’t, in most things, get what you want if you want it too desperately: anyway, you can’t get the best out of it. ‘Now! Let’s have a real good talk’ reduces everyone to silence. ‘I must get a good sleep tonight’ ushers in hours of wakefulness. Delicious drinks are wasted on a really ravenous thirst. Is it similarly the very intensity of the longing that draws the iron curtain, that makes us feel we are staring into a vacuum when we think about our dead? ‘Them as asks’ (at any rate ‘as asks too importunately’) don’t get. Perhaps can’t.

And so, perhaps, with God. I have gradually been coming to feel that the door is no longer shut and bolted. Was it my own frantic need that slammed it in my face? The time when there is nothing at all in your soul except a cry for help may be just the time when God can’t give it: you are like the drowning man who can’t be helped because he clutches and grabs. Perhaps your own reiterated cries deafen you to the voice you hoped to hear.”