When I went for treatment last week Baptist Health was having a Cancer Survivor Celebration Day. If there was one balloon, there was a 1000 of them. That might be a low estimate.
Booths were set up in the waiting area and people who would cover those booths were scurrying around trying to get ready. My treatment was early and I was finished before most of the celebration began. I was glad about that. I slipped out the door to the special valet parking for cancer patients and had to wait longer than normal because of the influx of people coming to the celebration. There was something in me that had some trouble celebrating that I am a cancer survivor. Survivor indicates that something has happened in the past that is now behind me. I would be a cancer survivor of the sarcoma in my leg 22 years ago. It does appear from the blood work that the prostate cancer is now somewhat in the rearview mirror. I could not, however, celebrate that I am a survivor of the multiple myeloma. Cancer “Surviving” Celebration Day might have been the name I would have chosen. From the first surgery I had on the sarcoma I have never once said that I am cancer free. I hear cancer patients say that from time to time and I cringe when I hear that. None of us ever knows for sure that we are cancer free. There is someone whom I love deeply who has fought breast cancer for over 10 years. She is a model for me of what it takes to fight the dreaded disease. She still takes chemotherapy treatments every month and will for the rest of her life. That is likely what will lie ahead for me after the stem cell transplant. I guess you could say that she is a cancer survivor after 10 years. But I think she would say that she is “surviving” rather than survived. The Bible uses leprosy of the body as an illustration of sin in the soul. If the Bible was written today I would think that cancer would be the illness used as the illustration. Like cancer of the body, I would never say that I am sin free. I am not a “sin survivor.” Dealing with sin is not in the past. It is an ongoing reality. I am surviving the cancer of the soul. The treatment of the blood of Jesus is an ongoing reality. I need the treatment often. There is far more celebration that I am surviving sin than I am surviving cancer. There’s coming a day when I will step into the next life. That’ll be the day when survivor could be said. I will have survived and the disease of sin will be in the past. Forever. The ongoing treatments will have worked. Someday when my obituary is written there will likely be something in it about me battling cancer. That battle isn’t the one to celebrate the fight that is in me. I’d prefer for the obit to say something about the fight that really matters.
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Chuck Cooper
Pastor at Daybreak Community Church Archives
November 2024
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