(written 25th October 2014)
It is four years today, 25 October 2010, since I was diagnosed. That is four years since my career was forced to change direction. As a preacher of nearly forty years’ experience, not to have a natural voice of my own was a body blow, in more ways than one!
Aggressive cancer has imprisoned me in a life I did not choose and I do not like. At times I get depressed, especially when I remember what I could have been doing today, if none of this had happened. But there’s no point in denying. It has happened. And not to “someone else”, but to me. Well and truly, to yours truly!
I am aware, “we are all dying”. Everyone is born only to die brief years along life’s road. 20, 40, 70 years? Length really doesn’t matter, especially when you are doing “time”. Banged up in a body that isn’t all it should be. Life “outside” seems an awfully long time ago.
Yet I have a belief that sharply focuses my view of dying. I am disabled. I may be depressed. I will almost certainly die one day. But, in God’s time, my dying will bring me freedom and give wholeness to me. It is worth a look ahead.
When I turn away from my life which ends in death, I can concentrate on my death which ends in life!
Then, I will be free from the limitations brought to me by sin, by rebellion against God and His ways. I will become like my Lord Jesus in His death and resurrection.
And then, I will be whole. The risen Christ spoke to His followers in a voice they recognised! I want my first “natural” words to my Lord Jesus to be those gasped by Thomas, when the truth of a life hereafter stood facing him across the room. I will say, with ever increasing awe and amazement: “Jesus ……My Lord, and, Jesus …… my God, and Jesus …. my Saviour!”
Though now disabled, depressed and dying, I can still choose to focus elsewhere. Look forward to the climax of human history. “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labour for me….”, Philippians 1:21-22.
Dying today, we all still live on. Let’s do what we can to make today worthwhile for eternity.
Yours, while impatiently waiting,