Don't Mess With the Good News

Chances are that you’ve experienced this a time or two. You have some really exciting news—something that has just made your day, or at least it’s certainly something that’s so important that you want to tell everyone about it. So you run to someone you thought was your friend and you gush it out.

But all you get in response is a strange look on their face. They wait for you to finish (or worse yet, they interrupt you), and then proceed to tell you a story of their own which they think is important. Sometimes it may be similar to yours, sometimes it bears no resemblance. Yet the reality is that from your perspective (which of course is all that matters to you at this point) you cannot imagine why anyone in the world (except, perhaps, their mother) would care even a little bit about their story.

Don’t you just hate it when that happens? It’s so annoying when your bubble gets burst. It can be so deflating.

He caught the prize fish the next day,
 a 36 lb lake trout

This reminds me of my Dad. I’ve told you about him before. He was kind of crazy. Actually, he was kind and crazy. I guess that’s where I get it from (the crazy part, that is). Here’s a picture of the two of us on a fishing trip just a few years ago. My Dad is the one with the big grin. The tall, dark and handsome one on the left? Well, that’s the guy my wife married almost 43 years ago. She has a lot of patience. And her love endures forever (so far, anyways). But be honest with me now, you can certainly understand her infatuation with him can’t you? I thought so. Most people can.

During the years I was growing up in India I turned 17. And at that time my Dad was about as many years older than I as he always had been. Suddenly God kind of brought his life and schedule to an abrupt and lengthy pause. He really needed a Selah. (We’ll say that means an interlude, a time to pause and calmly think about things for a while.) So he took a part of this time of healing to accompany me and my friends to most of our school sporting events in which I was involved.  All the guys loved him like he was our team mascot.

One of these events was our annual inter-school athletics competition where our little all-boys school in the mountains of South India competed against teams from other schools many times our size and with multiple times the resources. We were the Davids and they were the Goliaths. But they usually won.

Now I was part of our school team, but running sprints, short distance, middle distance, long distance or any other distance was not my specialty. I competed in other things like discuss, shot put, and all that. But the coaches figured I would make good bait. Okay. How bad could that be? We had a real champion in our school to run the 800 meter race. I wasn’t him. For some reason the coach figured I’d be able to do a good job as a pacer for our champ, but that I’d probably not make it past about the 600 meter mark. Obviously I was dispensable. (Pause, and calmly think about that for a while.) I love it when people express their unreserved confidence in me.

Well, I ran the race. The full 800 meters. I can’t remember for sure, but I think our school champ won the race (a fact which in my mind was completely insignificant), which means that all the credit belonged to me, because I had paced him according to the plan. Actually, what is significant is that I not only finished the race, but much to the surprise of anyone that knew me, I came in at fourth place. Not good enough to stand on the podium, but far ahead of all the others that I left trailing far behind—unreachable inches behind me.

Of course, my Dad had been watching and cheering from the stands. I ran up to him and shouted, “Dad, I came fourth! I came fourth!” He looked at me with that look on his face and said dryly, “Good. So did Lazarus.” Hmmm.

In case you’re not familiar with the story to which my Dad had just alluded, there’s an account in the Bible of the time when Jesus went to the tomb where his good friend Lazarus had been laid. After he had died. That’s what tombs were for—dead people. Lazarus had been dead for several days now but Jesus called out to him, “Lazarus, come forth!” And so Lazarus just up and walked out of the tomb, alive and well. So apparently I was just like Lazarus! I came fourth!

But being like Lazarus was not my goal. The track team coach had not warned me about that. I suppose placing fourth was better than not coming out of the tomb at all (or having to be placed in it because I had collapsed at the 600 meter mark). And I had kind of hoped that my Dad would celebrate with me over my performance in the race that I wasn’t supposed to finish. My good news bubble was burst. Deflated. Gone.

I must interject at this point to assure you that my Dad and I knew each other well. I knew when he was joking and I knew now that he was as thrilled as I was that I had done what I did that day. We took a few moments to hug each other and jump up and down rejoicing at my success!

So here’s the part about my health “good news bubble.” Here’s the part where someone has messed with the good news. At the end of my last update I told you that Dr. Granger had called while I was writing the update, to tell me that during the surgery they had removed 20 lymph nodes and that the pathology report indicated that all 20 were clear. No sign of cancer in them at all. Good news indeed! (Bubble still intact at this point.)

A short while after I’d actually sent out that update, Dr. Bahl, the radiation oncologist, called to give me the results of the PET scan and the pathology report. He confirmed the details about the 20 lymph nodes that were removed. But, he told me, there are still a couple more spots down near the location of the original tumor in my lower left leg that they “are concerned about.” The PET scan indicated these spots are malignant. Those words coming from the oncologist, about my body, are disheartening. (Bubble now burst. Deflated.)

We’re not sure what comes next in this journey. We have several appointments next week, two of which are with Dr. Bahl and Dr. Granger. We will be discussing next steps for treatment. We have lots of questions, but don’t expect clear and immediate answers to all of them. That’s how it works. I understand that, and right now I’m okay with that. Those are the times when I get to experience the wonderful reality of the peace of God. I don’t completely understand how it all works but I’m looking forward to that part—the peace part.

There have been some hard days for me this past week. Increased pain for some reason. (Probably my fault for pretending I can handle it on less medication than I should be on. Good grief! I’ve since changed my mind and find that this one works better.) I’ve had bouts of discouragement. (Probably because I don’t have enough patience to let my body heal at its own pace.)

But God is good. God is faithful. And I am sure that God will give me all the grace and strength I need for this journey. I know these things from personal experience. And in this I will rest.

Selah