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This is an outstanding testimony from Tony Snow, President
Bush's Press Secretary, and his fight with cancer. Commentator and
broadcaster Tony Snow announced that he had colon cancer in
2005. Following surgery and chemo-therapy, Snow joined the
Bush Administration in April 2006 as press secretary.
Unfortunately, on March 23, 2007, Snow, 51, a husband and
father of three, announced the cancer had recurred, with tumors
found in his abdomen, - leading to surgery in April, followed by
more chemotherapy. Snow went back to work in the White House
Briefing Room on May 30, but then resigned, "for economic reasons,"
and to pursue “other interests. Tony died July 12, 2008
It needs little intro... it speaks for itself.
"Blessings arrive in unexpected packages, - in my case, cancer.
Those of us with potentially fatal diseases - and there are millions
in America today - find ourselves in the odd position of coping with
our mortality while trying to fathom God's will. Although it would
be the height of presumption to declare with confidence "What It All
Means," Scripture provides powerful hints and consolations.
The first is that we shouldn't spend too much time trying to answer
the "why" questions: Why me? Why must people suffer? Why can't
someone else get sick? We can't answer such things, and the
questions themselves often are designed more to express our anguish
than to solicit an answer.
I
don't know why I have cancer, and I don't much care. It is what it
is, a plain and indisputable fact. Yet even while staring into a
mirror darkly, great and stunning truths begin to take shape. Our
maladies define a central feature of our existence: We are fallen.
We are imperfect. Our bodies give out.
But despite this, - or because of it, - God offers the possibility
of salvation and grace. We don't know how the narrative of our
lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between
now and the moment we meet our Creator face-to-face.
Second, we need to get past the anxiety. The mere thought of dying
can send adrenaline flooding through your system. A dizzy,
unfocused panic seizes you. Your heart thumps; your head swims.
You think of nothingness and swoon. You fear partings; you worry
about the impact on family and friends. You fidget and get nowhere.
To
regain footing, remember that we were born not into death, but into
life, - and that the journey continues after we have finished our
days on this earth. We accept this on faith, but that faith is
nourished by a conviction that stirs even within many non believing
hearts - an intuition that the gift of life, once given, cannot be
taken away. Those who have been stricken enjoy the special
privilege of being able to fight with their might, main, and faith
to live fully, richly, exuberantly - no matter how their days may be
numbered.
Third, we can open our eyes and hearts. God relishes surprise. We
want lives of simple, predictable ease, smooth, even trails as far
as the eye can see, - but God likes to go off-road. He provokes us
with twists and turns. He places us in predicaments that seem to
defy our endurance; and comprehension - and yet don't. By His love
and grace, we persevere. The challenges that make our hearts leap
and stomachs churn invariably strengthen our faith and grant
measures of wisdom and joy we would not experience otherwise.
'You Have Been Called'. Picture yourself in a hospital bed. The
fog of anesthesia has begun to wear away. A doctor stands at your
feet, a loved one holds your hand at the side. "It's cancer," the
healer announces.
The natural reaction is to turn to God and ask him to serve as a
cosmic Santa. "Dear God, make it all go away. Make everything
simpler." But another voice whispers: "You have been called." Your
quandary has drawn you closer to God, closer to those you love,
closer to the issues that matter, and has dragged into
insignificance the banal concerns that occupy our "normal time."
There's another kind of response, although usually short-lived an
inexplicable shudder of excitement, as if a clarifying moment of
calamity has swept away everything trivial and tiny, and placed
before us the challenge of important questions.
The moment you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death, things
change. You discover that Christianity is not something doughy,
passive, pious, and soft. Faith may be the substance of things
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But it also draws you
into a world shorn of fearful caution. The life of belief teems
with thrills, boldness, danger, shocks, reversals, triumphs, and
epiphanies. Think of Paul, traipsing through the known world and
contemplating trips to what must have seemed the antipodes (Spain),
shaking the dust from his sandals, worrying not about the morrow,
but only about the moment.
There's nothing wilder than a life of humble virtue, - for it is
through selflessness and service that God wrings from our bodies and
spirits the most we ever could give, the most we ever could offer,
and the most we ever could do.
Finally, we can let love change everything. When Jesus was faced
with the prospect of crucifixion, he grieved not for himself, but
for us. He cried for Jerusalem before entering the holy city. From
the Cross, he took on the cumulative burden of human sin and
weakness, and begged for forgiveness on our behalf.
We
get repeated chances to learn that life is not about us, that we
acquire purpose and satisfaction by sharing in God's love for
others. Sickness gets us part way there. It reminds us of our
limitations and dependence. But it also gives us a chance to serve
the healthy. A minister friend of mine observes that people
suffering grave afflictions often acquire the faith of two people,
while loved ones accept the burden of two peoples' worries and
fears.
'Learning How to Live'. Most of us have watched friends as they
drifted toward God's arms, not with resignation, but with peace and
hope. In so doing, they have taught us not how to die, but how to
live. They have emulated Christ by transmitting the power and
authority of love.
I
sat by my best friend's bedside a few years ago as a wasting cancer
took him away. He kept at his table a worn Bible and a 1928 edition
of the Book of Common Prayer. A shattering grief disabled his
family, many of his old friends, and at least one priest. Here was
a humble and very good guy, someone who apologized when he winced
with pain because he thought it made his guest uncomfortable. He
retained his equanimity and good humor literally until his last
conscious moment. "I'm going to try to beat [this cancer]," he told
me several months before he died. "But if I don't, I'll see you on
the other side."
His gift was to remind everyone around him that even though God
doesn't promise us tomorrow, he does promise us eternity, - filled
with life and love we cannot comprehend, - and that one can in the
throes of sickness point the rest of us toward timeless truths that
will help us weather future storms.
Through such trials, God bids us to choose: Do we believe, or do we
not? Will we be bold enough to love, daring enough to serve, humble
enough to submit, and strong enough to acknowledge our limitations?
Can we surrender our concern in things that don't matter so that we
might devote our remaining days to things that do?
When our faith flags, he throws reminders in our way. Think of the
prayer warriors in our midst. They change things, and those of us
who have been on the receiving end of their petitions and
intercessions know it. It is hard to describe, but there are times
when suddenly the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and you
feel a surge of the Spirit. Somehow you just know: Others have
chosen, when talking to the Author of all creation, to lift us up, -
to speak of us!
This is love of a very special order. But so is the ability to sit
back and appreciate the wonder of every created thing. The mere
thought of death somehow makes every blessing vivid, every happiness
more luminous and intense. We may not know how our contest with
sickness will end, but we have felt the ineluctable touch of God.
What is man that Thou art mindful of him? We don't know much, but we
know this: No matter where we are, no matter what we do, no matter
how bleak or frightening our prospects, each and every one of us who
believe, each and every day, lies in the same safe and impregnable
place, in the hollow of God's hand.
T. Snow
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Revised:
January 08, 2022 |