Yhis says it all

[Guest guest]

This is something pretty out standing whether or not, Tony Snow wrote

it! Very lengthy but very well written!

Ed~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~This is 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 chemotherapy,

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 has resigned since, 'for economic reasons,' and to pursue 'other

interests'. It needs little intro...it speaks for itself.

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'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 , 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 people's 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.'

T. Snow

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