Celebrating Cancer?

A few days back, Tim Keller posted on Facebook his two year “celebration” of his pancreatic cancer that he was diagnosed with back in 2020. He called it a celebration because, even with all the accompanying anxieties, setbacks and discomfort he and his wife have been through, there has been a measure of success in the treatment of his cancer over the ensuing period. In his words  

                   “God has seen it fit to give me more time"

and his post also indicated the possibility of future treatment. For many of us who had followed Tim over the years, and gained so much from his teaching, his writings, his leadership, it seemed such an unfair blow at the time, that God should 'take him out' as it were. And yet, here he is, two years, on celebrating with joy, and, I would add, continuing to speak prophetically into our society and our times.

So let me also “celebrate”, my own 'one year on'. Yes, it's almost exactly a year since the original diagnosis of my own melanoma by Dr Joana Panoutsopolou, in Athens.  

    I celebrate, because, as she herself admitted, it was not a typical melanoma and could have been easily overlooked. Who knows how long we might have remained in Greece, before the full extent of my cancer was eventually known, and action taken. 

    I celebrate, because, even though it was incredibly hard leaving Greece and all that we had loved about that new adventure we had only just begun, there were so many unique and miraculous interventions that happened to make the return and entry back into life in N Ireland so smooth.

    I celebrate, because I feel I have learnt so much along this journey - 

about myself and about my God, about mortality and about eternity, about 

    I celebrate, because this new season we are in has brought us closer together as a couple, has enriched our family times together, and has reinforced for me the reality of the ‘great cloud of witnesses’ that surround us as we walk through life.

    And, I celebrate, because, yes, even though I do feel the effects of one year living with cancer, just now I am feeling stronger in myself than I have been in the past several weeks, and, in spite of the negative prognosis, I am appreciating afresh the wonder of God's healing and sustaining power. 

Arise and Be Doing

Over the years, I have kept a journal in several exercises books. 

Somewhere in storage there must be a carton full of tatty exercise books.

(Thinks: someday I really need to compile them into something.) 

The current one I started exactly one year ago, first entry May 2nd 2021.

I happened to glance at what I wrote then. 

That first entry was full of the excitement of our first Easter in Athens:

 

 -  The wonderful drama of a Greek Orthodox Easter, with fireworks and candles at midnight on Saturday

-   Meeting up with our Greek friends through the day

-  Sharing in an Easter service with Iranian refugees, and later 

-  Discovering I was still able to preach in Urdu for the first time in years to a gathering of South Asians in central Athens.

I wrote then about all the possibilities that were opening up ahead. 

What else will God show us about his plans for us in this city?

Yet, barely one month later we were thinking very differently.

Such a lot has happened since then! 

Such a different outlook.

Now in a new season of our lives. 

Unexpected and uncharted territory. 

And a very different pace of life for us. 

But the same God who gave us that richly lived year in Athens is still the same God. I headed that exercise book with a word from the Bible

        "Arise and Let us be Doing!"  

That call to action still stands.

The context and the circumstances may have drastically changed.

But God is still saying to us “Arise and be Doing”. 

** 1 Chronicles 22:16