There are some comments that people make about me regarding my cancer that I don’t especially like, and here is one of them: “You are so strong to go through all this.”
This is not so.
I am a wimp. I can handle nothing. Upon the least adversary, I fold.
And yet, I am still standing, somehow.
I will tell you the secret of my strength. It is very simple: I just don’t have my own resources to fall back on in dealing with everything that has come my way, but other ones as well. This is good; the reality is that oftentimes situations are much more than we can handle and when they drag on day after day, it’s even worse. It can easily seem endless and dark.
But remember, cancer is as much mental as it is physical, and perhaps more. The problem is that by nature we are wired wrong, I believe. What do I mean by that? Well, all of us has a certain amount of fortitude and desire to be good, but in the pinch there are limits. We can only take so much adversary, and at some point our goodness also runs out. When we can take no more, we complain, and often loudly. We can also become bitter, which is the worse state a human being can be in. And if pushed too far, we become no longer good but positively bad, all our justifications notwithstanding.
The key is to get new wiring. Now wouldn’t that be great! I think that is what everyone longs for but never quite reaches.
This is where the New Testament comes in. It is a book that will positively confound your every assumption about life. Up is down, left is right, big is little. Read it rightly, and your mind will be at once expanded and blown apart.
Let me give you an example. These verses, written by Paul 2,00 years ago. have saved my life as much as the Gamma Knife treatments I got at Roswell:
But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. 10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships,in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Cor 12:9-11
Can you see it? Are you able to get it? Let’s just say that this is not a normal and human way of experiencing life. Who in the world delights in insults, hardships and difficulties? Go ask 100 people and see what answer you get. Of course you know what all 100 will answer. No one like adversary.
And yet Paul had it this way in truth and spirit – or he is a liar and fraud? You decide.
This is true Christianity, which is actually a help in all of life. I personally don’t need a dead religion of tradition and ritual nor a feel-good touchy-feely experience every Sunday that crashes on Monday. I need help in all the trials I am going through. I need a thorough re-wiring. I need the old ripped out and the new hooked up. I need to get new insides and above all, to be faithful to stick to the new and reject the old. Nothing else will do. Nothing else is Christianity. And nothing else helps.
That is the secret of my strength – which is actually Gods. It’s also completely free and the government can’t tax it! What a deal!
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Cancer Chronicles 