A peaceful heart leads to a healthy body; jealousy is like cancer in the bones. (Proverbs 14:30)
I found out Wednesday that I have
cancer of the esophagus. It is fairly advanced and it is what has
been causing me difficulty in swallowing .
There is a mass 2 inches in length and
2 inches around that is completely blocking the entrance to my
stomach.
On the bad side, I have not been able
to eat for a while. On the good side, I have lost 50 pounds in the
past three months. Hard diet though.
It is stage three so I will have to
begin chemotherapy before the doctor can remove it. The prognosis is
good for me.
In the meantime, he placed a stent
between the entrance to my stomach and the end of the esophagus so I
can eat. For the two or three days before I went in, I was not even
able to drink water.
This changes things in my life
considerably. I have never been really sick, except for pneumonia 25
years ago and a gall bladder attack in 1997. Otherwise, I have been
in great health. This is only the second time in a hospital for me,
so it is a little hard to complain.
Someone asked me how I felt about it. My answer: I feel a great deal of peace. I know that God is with me and I know that he will take care of me. The passage from John 11 also comes to mind. I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die.
That is how I feel.
I told my church about it this morning during my sermon. Since I was talking about peace, it seemed fitting.
They had been wondering about it and some suspected it. And they are good people who care about me.
Will I die? Yes. In forty or fifty years I will be dead as a hammer. Maybe this will kill me, probably not. An awful lot of people recover from worse cancer.
Do I like it? No. I hate it, because it is an invasion of my body.
But it is not the end of the world. That will come when God decides to come again. And while I consider myself to be the center of the universe (as does everybody), my living or dying will not tremendously affect the world.
I do know that God did not send this, nor is it his will. God does not send bad things.
Sometimes things happen for which there is no purpose. Look at the book of Job. But I know that he will use it if I allow him to his glory and that is fine with me.
I praise his name in my life and even will in my death.
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