Commentator and broadcaster Tony Snow
announced that he had colon cancer in
2005. Following surgery and
chemo-therapy, Snow joined the Bush
administration in April 2006 as press
secretary. Unfortunately, on
March 23 Snow, 51, a husband and
father of three, announced that 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
resigned August 31. Tony died
July 12, 2008 of colon cancer.
He was 53. The following was
apparently written by Tony a couple of
years ago. What a strong testimony to
the faith of one person. Oh,
that we could be this strong.
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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 Paul,
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 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."
Tony Snow
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Snow