Years ago Judy and I visited a friend during his last week on earth. His faith in Christ and hope of heaven encouraged all who watched him go home. As his body began to fail him, he referred to it as his “container”. He was in deep pain the day Judy and I were privileged to come to the side of our friend and his bride. We read Scripture, prayed for healing and comfort, and then had to say goodbye. We knew that unless the Lord intervened, we had probably talked with our dear friend for the last time and that the next time we talked to the love of his life, it would be at his memorial service.

Yet, as we were leaving, our friend demonstrated a life-lesson I’ve “lived” myself: He told us that he was going to mow the lawn!

Judy insisted that I intervene. “You can’t let him mow that lawn. Tell him you will do it for him!”

“No,” I told her, “you have no idea how much he needs to mow that lawn. If he collapses dead mowing that lawn, he will be happier than if I did it for him.”

This is one of the primary lessons I learned during my bout with lymphoma. The routine means more to those of us who feel we have been “set aside” and that we are losing our grip on our life. Some of the greatest moments in recovery are those when we suddenly find that we can do something we use to take in stride.

I remember the first day I was able to begin helping Judy around the house after my last battle with this disease. I brought in the trash bins, weeded the front lawn a little, and pulled Judy’s car into the garage from the street!

“YES,” I said to myself, “I’m coming back.”

Do you know someone who is struggling through a life-threatening or life-devastating heartbreak? Ask the Lord to make you sensitive to their need to be useful. Those of us dealing with debilitating diseases or emotional trauma don’t want to be defined by our pain. The encourager should endeavor to encourage the discouraged on their terms. Let them do for themselves and others whenever they want. It may seem small to you, but to them it’s huge…in their journey, there is immeasurable joy in what we consider mundane.

“This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24).

Cancer Waiting Rooms

From late 2000 to 2008 I gathered with a group of people in a place none of us wanted to be—the waiting room of the USC Norris Cancer Center’s Outpatient Clinic. What we had in common was our deadly diagnosis, and our bandaged arms from the blood test our oncologist was about to read.

I remember well the first time I took my seat in that room. So weak I could barely walk and so embarrassed by my grotesque appearance, the emotions of actually being a cancer patient overwhelmed me. Judy had to support me—both physically and emotionally—when I tried to cross the street from the “regular” hospital to the cancer hospital.

Surveying the room over the years, I could see the despair in the eyes of the first-timers. They were still either reeling from or resisting the idea that they belonged there with people like me—people with cancer or lymphoma. They never imagined life could be so hard, so hurtful, so hopeless.

I always want to tell them about the One who sits next to in these rooms of despair—the same One who sat with me eight years ago and every visit since. The One who is always with me whispering words of comfort and hope into my life.

His name is Jesus.

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My Post from the Year I Survived Cancer…

Four days before Christmas, 2001. I should be talking with my son and his wife about their life, their dreams, and the joy of the holidays. That’s what we usually do when they fly home from their military duty station from somewhere in the world. Any other year our conversation this morning would revolve around the soon arrival of his sister’s family from Oregon and how great it’s going to be to spend Christmas just being together with the extended family

But not this year.

This Christmas, all we’re talking about is my deadly disease–my rash, the test results, the next specialist, what we’re discovering on the Web about chronic lymphoma, and the gloomy prognosis. I’m sick of talking about me and this disease. And it feels like Christmas will never be the same.

A family member passed a note along to me after having given her neighbor a copy of When God Breaks Your Heart.

This blog is to all the “anonymous” readers of When God Breaks Your Heart. Please know that all of your comments are forwarded to my personal email account and I do pray for you. I try to filter the remarks on this blog so your pain isn’t becoming a curiosity piece for casual readers. But this blog is the only way I can communicate back to you, to assure you of our prayers, and to let you know someone is listening.

My primary lesson for you is this:

God isn’t as distant as you think!

As you know from reading the book, I believe Jesus’ is screaming against your pain as tears flow down His holy face.

Trying to be as much a part of your life as a blog allows.

Has God Broken Your Heart, or the Heart of Someone You Love?

I titled my first book “When God Breaks Your Heart” because God broke my heart. I live with a chronic leukemia that almost took my life in 200o. I wish someone else could have written this book, but God chose me to suffer deeply so that I could help you trust Him, even when you feel He has broken your heart.

This is a book to help you or someone you love through the darkest days and nights.

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A few years ago Judy and I visited a friend, Jon Campbell, during his last week on earth. His faith in Christ and hope of heaven encouraged all who watched him go home. As his body began to fail him, he referred to it as his “container”. He was in deep pain the day Judy and I were privileged to come to the side of our friend and his bride. We read Scripture, prayed for healing and comfort, and then had to say goodbye. We knew that unless the Lord intervened, we had probably talked with our dear friend for the last time and that the next time we talked to the love of his life, it would be at his memorial service.

Yet, as we were leaving, our friend demonstrated a life-lesson I’ve “lived” myself—he told us that he was going to mow the lawn!

Judy insisted that I intervene. “You can’t let him mow that lawn. Tell him you will do it for him!”

“No,” I told her, “you have no idea how much he needs to mow that lawn. If he collapses dead mowing that lawn, he will be happier than if I did it for him.”

This is one of the primary lessons I learned during my bout with lymphoma. The routine means more to those of us who feel we have been “set aside” and that we are losing our grip on our life. Some of the greatest moments in recovery are those when we suddenly find that we can do something we use to take in stride.

I remember the first day I was able to begin helping Judy around the house after my last battle with this disease. I brought in the trash bins, weeded the front lawn a little, and pulled Judy’s car into the garage from the street!

“YES,” I said to myself, “I’m coming back.”

Do you know someone who is struggling through a life-threatening or life-devastating heartbreak? Ask the Lord to make you sensitive to their need to be useful. Those of us dealing with debilitating diseases or emotional trauma don’t want to be defined by our pain. The encourager should endeavor to encourage the discouraged on their terms. Let them do for themselves and others whenever they want. It may seem small to you, but to them it’s huge…in their journey, there is immeasurable joy in what we consider mundane.

“This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24).

This is a great post by our friend, Lee Ann Jackson. Lee Ann has been a part of Church of the Open Door since  before Judy and I arrived in 1996. She’s a single mom and an important part of Judy’s cherished group–her courageous His Alone community. Lee Ann is a part of the team at Ambassador Advertising, and wrote this encouraging piece for their insightful website.

Thanks, Lee Ann.

Pinky Promise

I made my first pinky promise last night.  I made it with a 6 year old girl.  She made me pinky promise she could lead prayer in AWANA.

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Ever feel like everything is going wrong? You know what I mean, you find yourself asking God if He really has any idea of what’s going on in your life. I’m in the middle of one of those times right now. Snow in the Midwest turned my flights from New York into an adventure, my truck’s in the shop, and now my computer’s acting weird.

Fortunately I’m working on a new book about discipleship and writing about Jesus’ words, “And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple (Luke 14:27).

It helped me so much as I sat exhausted, stuffed into the last plane leaving Philadelphia, that I wanted to highlight two points for you:

Take up your cross has more to do with agendas than it has to do with specific burdens of suffering. When that Roman soldier jerked you out of your home and strapped that cross on your shoulder, whatever you had in mind for that day, that week, or the rest of your life just changed. His agenda for your life was all that mattered.

Sometimes the hardest part of crossbearing is daily. I’m pretty good with the big agenda items. I’ve gone through relational, health, and financial crises and accepted it as Jesus’ agenda. But when my flight is cancelled or my truck needs a new engine or…. I don’t know why, but it’s often the little things that cause me to cling to my agenda with a sin-clenched grip.

Question: Is it the big things or the little things that flip you out and give you an attitude toward Jesus’ agenda for your life?

A very real dynamic in writing a book on suffering is that my heart hurts for so many who write me about their hopeless situations and deep pain. One recent comment is signed simply, Anonymous:

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