Introduction: A Few
Words about My Disease
So what do I know? As I look back I
realize the answer to that is “not much.” I know that I have neuroendocrine
tumors (NETs) of an undiagnosed origin, but it is believed that I have a rare
form of the rare cancer called pancreatic neuroendocrine tumors (PNETs). That
makes me special and also means that there is no standard course of treatment as
there is for more prevalent cancers like prostate cancer or breast cancer.
Every case of NETs is unique. Leave it to me to be special.
I know that while the disease is
treatable and, apart from divine intervention, incurable. It is a terminal condition, which means that
I will probably die from it or from a complication it causes. My disease is
considered rare, and it usually goes undiagnosed for years. If you are a guy
who has hot flashes, where you flush, turn red when under stress, mention it to
your doctor. It is sometimes misdiagnosed as IBS or a host of other diseases,
which is why zebras are the mascot for NETs. In med school doctors are told if
“you hear hoof beats look for a horse, not a zebra.” However, with NETs,
sometimes they need to look for the zebra too.
Also, zebras do a great job at blending into the background, this
disease hides extremely well and is hard to detect. Look up the symptoms on
www.caringforcarcinoid.org to learn more.
I also know that about 80% of the
people who are diagnosed with my disease that have the level of liver
metastasizes that I have die within that initial five-year window. 80%, 8:10 is
a tough mortality figure to face. Five years from my diagnosis date will be
July 10, 2018, in case you are wondering, or about 242 weeks from now.
This leads me to something else I
know, I know that I will be eating a lot more cheeseburgers in the next couple
of years, and Dairy Queen Blizzards, and everything else I want. Oh, I will
keep exercising, walking daily, and striving to stay healthy, but I have to be
careful and not overdo it because overtaxing my system, along with a host of
other things, can set off an attack. I know that I will have to manage my life
more intentionally than ever. I have limited reservoirs of energy and I have to
make sure I do what is most important each day. There are some days when I have
to take time just to recover. I also know that I will be taking my vacations.
For years I considered myself so indispensible to the job that I had that I
didn’t take my allotted vacation time. As you can see from the back of your
bulletin the list of other things I’m learning, I realize that I am replaceable
so that means I can take my vacations. I will be looking for chances to go
places on my “bucket list.” I am going to Disney, and England, and maybe next
fall on a cruise. I now realize, at a whole different level, how important time
off and time away is.
All of this has made me crazy
thankful for the life I have and the life I have left. There are also three
very important lessons that have become themes when I look back over the last
four months. There are three central ideas that I am going to allow to drive my
life and decisions from now on that I want to share with you. I am going to
choose to love deeply, live passionately, and listen to God intentionally. I
think I’ve spent my life thus far trying to do these things, sometimes better
than others, but now that the clock is ticking even louder I want to make sure
I give them even greater attention.
2 Corinthians 4:5-18
We
don’t preach about ourselves. Instead, we preach about Jesus Christ as Lord,
and we describe ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake.God said that light
should shine out of the darkness. He is the same one who shone in our hearts
to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus
Christ.
But
we have this treasure in clay pots so that the awesome power belongs to God and
doesn’t come from us. We are experiencing all kinds of trouble, but we aren’t
crushed. We are confused, but we aren’t depressed. We are harassed, but we
aren’t abandoned. We are knocked down, but we aren’t knocked out.
We
always carry Jesus’ death around in our bodies so that Jesus’ life can also be
seen in our bodies. We who are alive are always being handed over to death for
Jesus’ sake so that Jesus’ life can also be seen in our bodies that are dying. So
death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.
We
have the same faithful spirit as what is written in scripture: I had faith, and
so I spoke. We also have faith, and so we also speak. We do this because we
know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will also raise us with Jesus, and
he will bring us into his presence along with you. All these things are for
your benefit. As grace increases to benefit more and more people, it will cause
gratitude to increase, which results in God’s glory.
So
we aren’t depressed. But even if our bodies are breaking down on the outside,
the person that we are on the inside is being renewed every day. Our temporary
minor problems are producing an eternal stockpile of glory for us that is
beyond all comparison. We don’t focus on the things that can be seen but on
the things that can’t be seen. The things that can be seen don’t last, but
the things that can’t be seen are eternal.
Are you thankful for
the life you have been given? If so you will…
Love Deeply—focus on
relationships, not on being right.
“He
is the same one who shone in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge
of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ.” Is the love of Christ
shining in your life? When you realize that you are deeply loved by God, it
allows you to be able to love deeply.
Loving deeply is the opposite of
loving cheaply. We don’t
really love deeply; we love cheaply. In our social media saturated world where
with one click you can be deleted, unfriended, and remove social contact with
another faster than you can get served at most drive-thru, fast food places, we
have lost the importance of real intimacy because real intimacy is hard work. Loving
deeply is a decision, and it is tough. Loving deeply means you make the
decision to love unconditionally, express it wantonly, and nurture it
deliberately.
Love with conditions isn’t love;
it's a contract. It is a mutually beneficial exchange of services by people who
have similar interests and who affirm each other. That is not loving deeply. To
love deeply is to practice 1 Corinthians 13 as a way of life. That is the
famous “love chapter” of the Bible. I’ve read it at more weddings than I can
remember. The funny thing is that the writer of this chapter never married. He
didn’t intend it to be a wedding planner’s fall back text. He intended, I believe, for it to be a way of
life for people of faith. Though in reality that list of things “love is”, is
rather intimidating:
“Love is patient, love is kind.
It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor
others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of
wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always
protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” 1 Corinthians 13:4-8a
I can hear you now, “Are you kidding me? That is
impossible. Have you met my mother-in-law?” Or your co-worker, or that guy at
church (yes, people at church are sometimes the hardest to love), or whoever
else God places in your path that is difficult to love. Here is one of those
hard truths that I have realized as I look squarely at the end of my life.
There is no body that Christ did not die for, whether I like them (or love
them) or not. From my bishop (who is preaching at 1st UMC today btw)
to the guy at the end of the exit ramp with a cardboard sign, Jesus paid it all
for all of them, too. Not just for me; not just for you.
Not to mention if you live life in that 1
Corinthians 13 way you are going to get hurt. There are people you can love
that will never love you back. So what? Love them anyway. There are people that
will use your vulnerability against you. So what? Love them anyway. There are
people who will unfriend you over a simple misunderstanding, delete you when
you don’t affirm their political view, despise you when you are trying to do
your best. So what? Love them anyway.
Here is a clue, your clock is ticking just like mine.
Do you really have time NOT to love deeply? You don’t really have time to waste
on grudges, petty differences, or even big offenses? The other thing I am
certain of is that unforgiveness mostly hurts the unforgiver. When I choose, or
you choose, to nurture lingering disdain rather than deeply loving we are
really hurting our own heart. Most of the time those who we have unfriended
don’t know and/or don’t care. Love “keeps no record of wrongs.” Wow, that
stings huh? I mean how many times have you been in an argument and brought up
all the stuff from the past as extra ammunition? That means it is not love, its
back to that mutual benefit contract relationship. Love is unconditional or it
isn’t love at all. Paul tells us in 2 Cor. 4 that “the same one who shone in our hearts to give us the light...”
What light are you shining? Are you reflecting the unconditional love that God
gives you in Christ? Are you showing it?
I believe to love deeply not only is it
unconditional; it has to be expressed wantonly (I love that word, it means
excessive and unrestrained). It means living with an open heart and open hands.
Like loving without condition, expressing it wantonly means letting others know
they are loved with your words and your deeds.
Do you tell the people in your life that you love
them? All of the guys are now rolling their eyes, thinking, “Seriously dude?”
Seriously. I have sat beside literally dozens of people as they were dying during
my twenty plus years serving local churches. I can’t tell you how many times
people have said, “I wish I had told my son (or daughter, or friend, or wife)
how much I loved them.” We presume too much, we affirm too little. A
moment of awkward discomfort can heal a decade of pain.
Yes, I know it is awkward sometimes, but this is
what I’ve discovered in the last four months, the more you say it, the less
awkward it becomes. The more you show it, the easier it is to live it. Like
everything else, the more you practice the easier it gets.
Don’t just say it, show it. Expressing love wantonly
is more about life service than lip service. Words can quickly become cheap if
they aren’t backed up with action. Your
mama was right when she said that people judge what you do far more than what
you say.
So love is unconditional, it should be expressed
wantonly, but it also must be nurtured deliberately. Love is not accidental. It
is a decision, it is a daily decision, it is a risky decision. We get confused
thinking love is an emotion when, in actuality, loves is an act of the will and
if it is left unattended can quickly turn into resentment. Love, over time,
creates intimacy and vulnerability. You live lives that are more open, more
real.
People tell you stuff when they find out your are
dying. Stuff they would probably never tell you before. We have been
overwhelmed by blessings and I couldn’t figure out why. My friend explained to
me it is because Danelle and I have always tried to love first. You have to go
first.
Speaking of love, and how it is unconditional,
showed wantonly, and nurtured when I was first diagnosed my biggest concern was
not for what would happen to me, I have assurance of my relationship with
Christ. My concern was for those that I love. Reviewing my insurance, checking
with my benefits coordinator, looking over my will and advance directives. I am doing the hard work as a way to show my
family I love them one last time. I even have on my desk is a folder
that says, “Pastor Marty’s Master Party,” that's what I’m calling my funeral. I
am planning a party. I am going to plan a caterer (Bryan), maybe book a band
(Mark), and do it Marty style…
You want to know how to show love
them is that, regardless of where you are in this whole living and dying
process, if you don’t take care of those things you are being selfish. You are
saying that you don’t care enough about those you leave behind to make the
tough choices so they won’t have to. You are expecting the state to take care
of your money and assets. Really? They can’t even balance their own budget; you
want them to handle yours? Give the people you love one last great gift and
take care of the details now. You are going to meet Jesus, get your heart
ready, and get your house ready. Which brings us to the second lesson:
Live Passionately—focus
on significance not success.
“We
are experiencing all kinds of trouble, but we aren’t crushed. We are confused,
but we aren’t depressed. We are harassed, but we aren’t abandoned. We are
knocked down, but we aren’t knocked out.”
Living passionately is the opposite
of living passively. When I was in high school two things that happened almost
simultaneously changed the way I looked at my future: I read Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
and I took a Dale Carnegie Leadership course through Junior Achievement. Both
of these experience hammered into my head he importance of resilience. Of
getting up when you get knocked down, of not quitting. There were three lessons
that stuck out to me then and that I have re-visited in the past four months
that help me focus upon living passionately and keeping my focus on what is
significant, and not what culture defines as success: be proactive; begin with
the end in mind; and expect the best but accept the worst.
Living passionately means we must
be proactive, not reactive. We let life come at us rather than being proactive.
Every time in my life when I have lived as a reaction to my circumstances I
regretted it. There are times when life stinks. Bad things happen to good
people. I don’t have time to go into a diatribe about my theology of sin; I
just know that there are times when life is hard. Long before Vince Lombardi
said, “It’s not how many times you get knocked down, it’s how many times you
get back up,” Paul wrote, “We are
harassed, but we aren’t abandoned. We are knocked down, but we aren’t knocked
out.” So get up. Make a plan and get moving. When you get the news my
family received on July 10, 2013 you have two choices, “get busy living or get
busy dying” (great quote from Shawshank
Redemption clip here). That is why
we are going to Disney in two weeks, because I refuse to die before I’m dead.
Thanks, btw.
Living passionately also means
beginning with the end in mind. I have often made the joke that I wanted a
thousand people at my funeral, wow that’s egotistical. What I meant is that I
wanted to look back at my life and know that I had help people get connected to
God, to others, and to their divine calling. I have always had “an end in mind”
but now it is even more pressing. Now I have limited energy, I have to begin
every day thinking “what is the most important thing I can do for the kingdom
of God today.” The amazing thing is that if you are busy loving deeply and you
have a picture of what you want your end to look like, priorities are easier.
That doesn’t mean I don’t make mistakes, that I don’t waste some of those
precious 1,440 minutes I’m given every day, but it does mean that I am making
an intentional decisions to focus on a life of significance. For me this means
I disciple a few people more deeply rather than a leading a lot of people to
make a surface decision. It means I write more and try to worry less because
the words on the page will out live the
words in the pulpit.
In the past four months I’ve
written about 100,000 words. I have written more than 40,000 words about my
initial month or so having a terminal illness, 30,000 in the daily devotions
“Welcome to a Life that Matters,” thousands of words for sermons and blogs. I
write because it forces me to be vulnerable, it makes me deal with the process
of living while dying. It would be really easy to live my life with a sense of
doom, but that would be ungrateful to God for the time I have left. Some of
what I write is poorly written and badly punctuated, just ask my chief
proofreader. My manuscript has more red ink on it than any paper I’ve ever
written thanks to a ruthless editor, but writing has always been my passion.
Since I was twelve years old I’ve wanted to be a writer, but I kept putting it
off, there would always be time for that. Now, there isn’t time. What is it you
are putting off because you think you will have time for it later?
Does this mean that I don’t worry
about success? That I don’t do my best? No, not at all. Paul also reminds us
“whatever we do, we do for God.” So whatever I do, I do it to the best of my
ability. I’m sure there are a lot of people who can do what I do better than I
can, but I won’t be measured by who they are, I will be judged by who I am.
Living passionately means I begin with wanting to be more who God created me to
be every day, to begin with the end in mind.
Living passionately means I accept
the worst and work for the best. Death is inevitable. I have an 8:10 chance of
dying in the next five years but you know what, 80%. Here is something to think
about, if you are over 40 you have a 2:10 chance of dying in the next five
years as well, that's 20% chance you will beat me to eternity; oh, and that chance
increases by 20% ever decade after that. Nobody gets out of this life alive
until Jesus comes. What are you putting off?
I have accepted the worst, but I'm
working for the best. After we get back from vacation Danelle and I are flying
to Vanderbilt to get a second opinion on my treatment. I am taking care of
myself, resting when I need to, and fighting to beat the odds. I love deeply
and living passionately, and I am trying to do everything I can to leverage the
situation I am in for the cause of Christ. What are you putting off? Where are
you being reactive?
Listen to God
Intentionally—focus on where God is leading, not what others are saying.
“Our temporary minor problems are producing
an eternal stockpile of glory for us that is beyond all comparison. We don’t
focus on the things that can be seen but on the things that can’t be seen.
The things that can be seen don’t last, but the things that can’t be seen are
eternal.”
Our world
is loud and God usually whispers. Culture defines success by what you gather,
significance is defined by what you give.
I’ve been
reading Daring Greatly by Brene’
Brown this week (actually listening to it). One thing she said really stuck
with me, it was that most of define our lives what we lack. Our self-definition
revolves around the statement, “I’m not ___________ enough.” I’m not smart
enough, rich enough, pretty enough, small enough, big enough, fast enough.
I grew up
never thinking I was enough. My father abandoned me; I wasn’t a good enough
son. I was cut from the team, I wasn’t a good enough athlete. I didn’t get to
go to our honors class trip to Washington because we didn’t have the money, I
wasn’t wealthy enough. I was never the best at anything; I was never enough
because in my mind if you weren’t the best, you weren’t enough. Every time I
have had any set back, it reinforced my not being enough. I have spent my whole
life trying to prove myself. In the past four months I have come to realize
that I’m enough because Jesus says so.
We have a focus on scarcity when we
serve a God of abundance. God made you. Jesus redeemed you. The Spirit inspires
you because you are worth it. You are enough. You are the YOU God created you
to be. The key is to quit giving credence to the voices of culture that tell
you what you aren’t and listen to God who reveals to you who you are. Listen
for God to whisper to you when you study the scripture; when you worship; and
spend time loving deeply and living passionately. God will not make you listen,
God invites you to listen. The question is are you listening?
Consumed by the Call,
Marty
