Let`s be Honest: Tumor Update

I can be brutally honest. I prefer to be that way. Even when it hurts, I love people enough to tell them the truth and want them to do the same for me. Now, I would never insult your intelligence by claiming to never lie. I have been known to tell a white lie to preserve the feelings of friends. To spare someone heart ache, I might withhold information. On rare occasions, I`ve even told some whoppers to save my skin or the skins of others. Let`s be honest, sometimes being completely honest is hard. My life, for the most part, has been an open book. I usually lay all my cards on the table but I have a poker face when I need it. Please don`t think I condone lying. It`s pride being released by the lips. Jesus hates pride.
You were invited along a journey to a joyous destination since it first began in September. I`ve been honest about my faith and condition but this vessel is a little more broken than you might think. I`d be lying if I told you I trusted the claims of Christ followers who seem to be too happy. I don`t think they have followed Christ into the garden. So, I doubt they have picked up that cross He requires we carry to come after Him. I`m not talking about intentionally keeping your eye on the prize and forcing a positive attitude because God is good all the time. I get that. I still consider myself a richly blessed, highly favored, and deeply loved child of the one true king. So while I`m too blessed to distressed and too restored to be ignored, I`m too honest to fake it. My cup runneth over but even Jesus asked for a different cup. I`d be lying if I said I hadn`t.
The problem isn`t me feeling sorry for myself. I don`t want pity from you or myself. There`s so many here worse off than me without Jesus, pity them.
 It`s not a problem of lack of faith. Faith, hope, and love are the only things I know you can increase for yourself by sharing. Like Jesus, I too have prayed the Father`s will be done. I know it will be done. But do I want it to be done? No.
If I could have things my way, I`d be spending two months anywhere else but here. There hasn`t been much that made me squirm in my seat with this. Certainly not the cosmetic effects of my treatments cause, let`s be honest, you all hate me because I`m beautiful.  Who cares if you loose a little hair, when you have so much to spare?
Hearing the treatment might cause another kind of tumor to form, or cause me to loose my memory wasn`t what I wanted to hear. That`s SSWS (seat squirming worthy syndrome). Knowing it will destroy my pituitary gland, causing me to be on hormone replacement from then on, isn`t what I would have planned. I`d have skipped the news I got on Monday to have forgone the anxiety that set in on Tuesday.
If I`d have planned things here what I would have missed:
 Trimming the tree with moma, while listing to Christmas favorites, was more than just a little nostalgic. It was magical. It`s a shame it took getting cancer and traveling great distances to make that happen.
The Freedom Trail. It was a great tour that explained many things about our country`s birth and the unique role faith played in that. I`ll be worshipping on Christmas Eve in a large church that played a key role in ending slavery. The church started as a small group. How cool is that? Knowing they helped change the world and couldn`t have been nearly as cool as my small group at home, sets me on fire. Speaking of small groups, something else I would have missed, was an awesome worship with a small group, who laid hands on me. Beautiful prayers and songs filled the candlelit room where seven people, representing six different worship centers, offered praises to the one true God, from the one true church. After a day of hearing about great things that once took place in Boston, I honestly think I heard angels singing "greater things are still to be done in this city."
Truthfully, I`m still more than a little broken and more than a little anxious. I still want things my way but I `m so glad I`m not in charge. Funny, how I can`t honestly explain how that`s true, but it is.  I just don`t won`t to miss out on the good things just to avoid life`s  bumps in the road. The greatest gift God ever gave mankind, the brightest revelation of light the world has ever known, the resurrection, was given to us in our darkest moment. The day we would have stolen the life of Christ had He not freely given it to us. So even in this hour of doubt, I honestly can`t see how anything other than the best is yet to come.

THE GOD I DON'T BELIEVE IN: MY THOUGHTS ON TERESA MACBAIN

   Methodist Minister turned atheist, Teresa MacBain, was     someone I never heard of until a non-believer felt compelled to share her story with me. I probably never heard of her because I don't go looking for atheist to pick on. Even if they are the first graduate of the clergy project, a program designed to lead clergy to godlessness, I don't look for them to ridicule. I did not seek out MacBain, even though she fabricated her credentials to insure her position as a director in what amounts to an Atheist church called the Humanist Community Project. Although MacBain pulled off this deception for a year and a half, and helped lead some away from faith, it's between her and a God she doesn't believe in. MacBain got the cold shoulder from friends when she left the faith. It cost her everything to come out as an Atheist. Now that she's godless, unchurched, and been "let go" from the atheist organization she was employed by, you could say, MacBain has "nothing" to lose. In my opinion, walking away from her faith wasn't necessarily a step in the wrong direction. Simply put, I don't believe in the god MacBain doesn't believe in.

Atheist, like MacBain, and many who call themselves Christian, do not believe in the God I have a responsibilty to share with others. They don't believe in a God that wants you no matter what you've done or a God who qualifies His people by what He's done. The one described by the bible. According to a Barna pole, as many as 91% of those who identify themselves as born again, do not have a biblical word view. A biblical word view boils down into beleiving: God's all knowing, all powerful, satan is real, Jesus is sinless, salvation is a gift from God, and you have a personal responsibility to tell others about Jesus. You might expect those to be pretty standard beliefs for Christians, but Barna Research found only 51% of pastors to have a biblical world view. It certainly helps not to have one if the bible disqualifies your from holding a position to begin with. Still, it's hard to do away with the book that created the positions in the first place. Satan has been selling a feel good, half truth from the beginning. It's an easy sale to an uniformed buyer. Separate research found only 26% of Christians read their bibles regularly and 70% will never finish it.
Stats like these suggest most people don't know what they are worshipping. When atheist accuse us of worshipping a figment of our imaginations, it seems in many cases they are right. Assuming the data is correct, most people have created a god out of their feelings, skipping over the less palatable portions of the bible as if it were olives on a salad buffet. The problem is if you can't trust the apostle Paul with the stuff you don't agree with, you can't trust promises like Romans 8:28. When asked to explain, how God can be just when the law seems to support things we call wrong, I can only point to the gracious God described by Jesus in Mathew chapter 19. Jesus says because our hearts are hard God allows things that were not necessarily His original design. Otherwise, none of us would have a chance.

The bible makes many claims about itself and God. Not the least of these, is the "word was with God from the beginning."(John 1:2) It even calls the Jesus the "word" in the "flesh." (John 1:14) Once I said, "putting your finger on a page in the bible is as close as you'll could come to touching Jesus this side of heaven." My friend, Phil Adams, correctly pointed out how it's more important for the word to touch us. Faith is what Christains will walk by and live by. The bible tells us faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God.(Romans 10:17) It's downright impossible to lose something you don't possess. It's equally impossible to share something you haven't got. If you walk away from the faith, it's a safe bet the word never touched you. It worries me more people remain in a false sense of security believing in something other than God than people claiming there isn't one. In Roman Chapter 1, Paul might as well have said God doesn't believe in Atheists. Even while pointing out "they are without excuse" the God of the bible is patient and wants salvation for His people.  ( 2 PETER 3:9) That will include some atheists who's minds God will change yet.  For my brothers and sisters not reading the bible, God tells us, His people are destroyed by their lack of knowledge. (Hosea4:6) For those who can't make up their minds on the bible, at least those with a biblical world view and Atheist can agree on one bible truth. "God is not the author of confusion." (1 Corinthians  14:33)

Missing Christmas

Christmas has always been a big deal to me. I love the music, the food, and the fellowship. I've heard about the Christmas rush but I've never been caught in it. For as long as I can remember, I have enjoyed sharing gifts with family and friends. It`s been hard for me to get in the Christmas spirit this year. Now, thanks to a brain tumor, I will be spending Christmas in Boston, away from my family and friends. I borrowed this years Christmas theme from the Grinch soundtrack, Where are You Christmas?  I`ve never missed Christmas before.

 Tonight, I took my family to see the Pirates Voyage. It was a new experience that served as our family Christmas dinner. The cast put us in the Christmas spirit. Our family singing Christmas songs together on the way home is bound to be the most surreal moment of this Christmas. The show was highly entertaining with a unique morphing of A Christmas Carol and their regular show. It touched on core Christian beliefs. Reminding the audience of the fiery consequence of an unredeemed life, the production highlighted God's rescue mission that began long before that first Christmas. It ended in a live nativity and communicated the only hope for mankind would come by way of the first holiday travel. There are so many lessons we can learn from that first Christmas.

The first Christmas gift was The Word of God. Instead of paper, it was wrapped in flesh wrapped in swaddling cloth. Now, gifts are found under a tree but the first one was found in a stable. Mary placed our gift in a manger. Our gifts sometimes come in boxes but we can`t put our God in one.

 The first Christmas light is still burning in the hearts of men. It was born in the shadow of a cross, overcomes the darkness of the grave, and is a lamp illuminating the only path to God. It`s the ultimate gift and a miracle for it to find you. Christmas is the beginning of " it is finished" It`s the miracle of hope. A miracle I intend to share in Boston. Like I said, I`ve never missed Christmas before. I see no reason to start now.

Don`t Let the Facts Get in the Way

 Yesterday while at Duke, one of the nurses told me, how she`d go scuba diving only if she had been diagnosed with something like I have. It`s on her bucket list.  I say, life is a death sentence. If you are waiting to live until you`re dying, God gave you the green light the day you were born. Live. Jesus came that we might live life to the fullest. Check it out John chapter ten. It`s good stuff.
Jerry Clower often said, ``never listen to the facts. If David had of listened to the facts, he never would have fought Goliath.`` For believers, those are great words to live by. Faith trumps facts, but to know that, you need to know the facts. At least then you`ll know how big the miracle is.  Some atheist like to say, `` never let the facts get in the way of a good story.``I couldn`t agree more.
 On September the 12, at my first consultation with a neurosurgeon, I was told 60% debunking of my tumor was the best I could hope for. Never let the facts get in the way of hope.  They promised me a spinal drain and a skin graph. I knew the facts. I just wasn`t listening. Like many of you, I was praying too hard to listen.
While at Duke the past two days, Doctors removed crusting left over from the surgery. It was kind of like a cystoscoping the nose while you are awake. (I absolutely can`t wait to hear the the funny comments that are sure to come after that reference ) It hurt more than a little. It probably would have hurt worse except I was still on a high. Just moments before the procedure, I found out my entire tumor is gone. Doctors have been amazed at my recovery from the surgery. So far, the fact is they have been wrong about the facts and I`m not complaining. Praise God, I have had no spinal drain, no skin graft. Now, I have no tumor. It doesn`t surprise me. When people pray, God specializes in changing the facts. I had lots of prayer and covet them still. Yesterday`s second highlight was when my Doctor`s final words to me were, ``I`ll be praying for you.``Finding out I might be well enough to dive later this year had to be a close third.

I`m not out of the woods yet, but it is encouraging.  The pathology came back as the mid grade chordoma. It could have been better but it could have been worse. Much worse.
In a few days, I`ll go to Boston for 8-1/2 weeks of daily treatments. The fact is, 51% of these tumors return after total resection. Radiation is the best prevention for regrowth. I`ll follow the Doctors orders because just one cell can cause the tumor to regrow. Periodically, I`ll be screened for cancer. I don`t think anyone would think me wise to quit now. Nobody would recommend a less aggressive treatment for this sickness. I sought the best doctors, and the best hospitals. How much sense would it make to miss appointments, skip medications, or ignore follow up treatment?

We have the best of the best when it comes to Christianity. Still, we miss many appointments with God.  We skip opportunities to grow and often ignore His instructions. Apparently, we want the cure but we are afraid of the treatment. Some seem to want to get injected with just enough Jesus to miss hell. I am trying the more radical Jesus everyday treatment since I don`t want to miss life. He`s assured me there`s room for more and the treatments are free. You coming?