Cancer and the blessing of not having a choice
I’m on my way home to the Motor City after a couple of days in the Music City. My dad has cancer and he’s receiving care at Vanderbilt University Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee. I broke away for three days to be with him and Mom.
My dad can tell you that cancer sucks.
He can also tell you that chemotherapy sucks. He can tell you that the side effects of chemotherapy sucks.
He can tell you that what sucks even more is that he hasn’t even experienced anything close to the worst of it yet.
He can tell you that living in a strange apartment sucks when you’re sick and tired and just want to be home.
He can tell you that it sucks that very few of his family and friends are allowed to visit because his immune system is shut down by the chemo.
Dad can tell you that it sucks to have to think about bills and insurance and money when your life is at stake and you’re miserable all over.
And I can tell you how much it sucks for me to watch Dad and Mom go through this.
Life doesn’t get much harder than this.
Here’s the blessing: We have no choice. This is the story.
We can choose to be angry (for more than a moment). We can choose to be overcome by sorrow (for more than a moment). We can choose to worry and worry and worry. We can even choose to feel like we’re being punished for something we did (or didn’t do). We can choose to try to bargain with God and wish and wish and wish that our offer is good enough for him to take (as if he needs anything from us).
We can choose all of that, but that still leaves us with something over which we have no choice: Cancer and all its collateral damage.
But if we can choose to be overcome by worry, we can also choose to overcome worry with something else.
We can choose to be cheerful. We can choose to be grateful. We can choose to take care of each other and ourselves. We can choose to use this time in our lives to deepen and strengthen our faith, hope, and love. We can choose to cherish each other now–right now (how often do we really do that?)–without a second thought about “what if…?”
We don’t have a choice over a lot of things in life. Sometimes that works out really well for us (being born in America, having a healthy body from birth, etc.). Sometimes it’s hard (getting cancer).
It’s a blessing that we don’t always have a choice.
It’s also a blessing that oftentimes we do.
Forget what you cannot control.
Give thanks and do something with what you can.
Grace and peace.