Hope
I'm my sitting on my deck listening to a dog bark a quarter of a mile away, watching the morning come to life, and enjoying the sounds of traffic as some of the rest of the world comes to life on this Saturday morning. I'm really enjoying a donut and a cup of coffee. For a moment I watched a bat fluttering and darting about overhead. For me the daylight is coming. For him the darkness is fading. I figure he's catching a few more bugs before he hangs himself up for the day..
The world and life are full of transitions.
I'm thinking about a snippet of a conversation that Kathy and I had yesterday evening. Some of you know that prior to the beginning of my prostate cancer journey, she had a similar journey of her own with breast cancer--surgery and chemo. Our transition was a role-reversal. She was the patient and I sought to help her as I could. For the past few months she is being of great help to me as I process the dreaded diagnosis, have gone through several procedures to further refine that diagnosis, and am almost finished with the first step in what we hope is a cure--a series of twenty-eight radiation treatments. I'll get back to our conversation in a moment.
A colleague of mine was diagnosed with prostate cancer a while before I was. He is younger than me, closer to the age of my sons than to me. He is currently under hospice care. By the time his cancer was detected it had already spread. (Before my treatment began I received a full-body PET scan to see whether that had been the case with me. By God's grace, it wasn't. Not to say that God's grace has forsaken my friend.) My coworker will soon pass through life's greatest transition. A closer friend of his tells me that this coworker is doing well. He is looking to a greater hope. As I wrote that last sentence a train passed by. I hear the sound of the wheels on the track fading into the West--a metaphor for my colleague's transition. Why him? Apparently, why not me? I don't know. I pray for my coworker as he faces the end of his earthly journey. I pray that he will hold onto the hope that reaches beyond the grave. I pray I will take my life, however long it is, for granted.
Transitions.
Yesterday, commenting on the care she had received, and I'm receiving, Kathy said, It gave me hope."
Not long ago, I was thrust into a situation of leading an organization that was on life support. I called the place where we did ministry "The Village of Job." I was called to lead a group of people, but I didn't know what to do. Thankfully, at the beginning, they led me in how to lead them. The list of problems that needed to be solved was pages long. Fires that could have consumed us had to be put out, or at least controlled. I soon learned, though, that before any of those issues could be effectively addressed, a more important, over-arching task lay before us. We had to restore hope. The darkness of despair had to give way to the sunshine of hope. If that transition doesn't take place, other efforts are likely to be futile.
Last night Kathy and I discussed plans to say thank you to the two teams of people who helped her, and are helping me, get through the transition from the darkness of the dread diagnosis, "You have cancer," to the dawning light of, "There is good reason to be hopeful."
I live in a papermill town in a valley, so the sun never shows itself until 9:00 or 10:00 O'clock. What passes for daylight in this little valley that I call home has arrived. The bat has gone to bed. In it's place I saw a bird flying through the subdued light--an early bird--no doubt looking for the worm. Like my feathered friend, I'm hopeful.
I'll lie down on the table of the medical linear accelerator four more times. I have good reason to be hopeful that the God-enabled efforts of the medical team will result in victory. I'm thankful that from all available evidence, Kathy is cured. I'm told that my radiation rash will soon be gone, my gymnastic stomach will settle down, and I'll quit feeling ten years older than I am. I hope so. I hope the fine people who have been so kind to us will appreciate the way-too-inadequate gestures of gratitude that Kathy and I have planned. I hope I'll have meaningful work to do in the time that this medical intervention is likely to give me.
I hope.
Thank You, Lord, for the daylight of hope that pushes out the darkness.
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