The Blessing of Cancer by Tony Snow
November 5, 2007
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 artings; 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, and 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, oldness, danger, shocks, reversals, triumphs, and epiphanies. Think of Paul,
traipsing though 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 an 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.'
Note:
Tony went to be with the Lord June 12, 2008. He had been a commentator and
broadcaster for many years. In 2005 Tony announced that he had colon cancer.
Following surgery and chemotherapy, he 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. That led to additional surgery and chemotherapy in April. Snow went back to work in the White House Briefing Room on May 30, but he later had to resign again, 'for economic
reasons,' and to pursue 'other interests.'
