(About a 5 min read… it may be a little cringe… but you’ll be ok…)
I spent the better part of two years in and out of cancer treatment centers… my wife was diagnosed with stage 4 metastatic breast cancer in 2016… it was new for me… and my loyalty was put to the test…
My wife and I had a difficult marriage… violence, and self harm was her norm… however, time and tragedy have a way of softening things and this time her aggression turned to a cry for help… how could I say no… in spite of all that she put me through… I loved her… in sickness and in health… for better or for worse… as long as we both shall live… my word meant something to me…
Like Job from the Bible, I had friends and acquaintances tell me “divorce her , man… you didn’t sign up for this!” And “if you stay, it’ll ruin your life…” but I thought about how I would feel being left to die alone… rejected by the one I thought loved me for life… maybe I’m sentimental… but there was no way that would happen on my watch…
So… I stayed… I strived to find solutions… I helped her change surgical bandages… so many of them… sometimes I would cry under my breath… the stitches and scars… I didn’t feel the physical pain… but I felt it in my heart… I helped her… encouraged her… I made life a joy in the midst of this tragedy…
I didn’t know anything about healing… I thought it was like a Holy lottery… maybe if you had enough luck that God would pick your number and you’d win the healing for the day!… but I knew in my heart that there was more to this mere existence… that there was something I was missing about life… and living…
Sickness was all relatively new to me… my grandpa died when I was 5 years old… but I couldn’t comprehend it… I was so little… so death just wasn’t an option to me… and that’s still how I am today…
There were so many nights where I would stay awake all night to wait for the next report… was it good or bad?… I fought for her rights… I made her healthy food and brought it to her when she was admitted again and again… for the most part… she was grateful…
I’d never seen this part of her… at least not since we were teens… there was no power struggle… less pride and self-righteousness… I did my best to help her and she would receive it… I thought about how strange it was to appreciate her sickness… what a contradiction…. but we bonded… we started to become friends for that first year…
Our fight seemed effective… we felt like we were winning… I campaigned and raised money to help cover costs… we had friends praying… because it seems that everyone turns to God when things go wrong… right?!… it was a unified front all circled around… disease…
Unfortunately… disease had become our unity… our identity… she became that poor soul who had terrible cancer… and I became that poor husband who was about to be widowed…
(For all those of you reading this who walked that journey along side of me… thank you… you’ll never know how much you meant to me during that season…)
The problem with identity is that you become what you behold… everyday we would identify with sickness… I would study it… she would feel it in her body… I would prepare foods that fought cancer… she would feel the side effects of the medication… I would tend to her surgical wounds… suppositories… medication schedules… she would submit to my help…. It was all about sickness… it consumed us… and gradually… we lost the fight… my wife passed away after enduring a terrible deterioration from cancer… and I lost everything that I had built in my life…
Here’s the thing… your faith will follow your focus… or in other words what you choose to believe is what will turn out for you… the Bible puts it like this… “Where your treasure is… there your heart will be also…” we chose death… and death overcame us…
Many people struggle to focus on life… some people focus on the past… others fear the future… today… I choose life… I choose to focus on whatever is of a good report… my life is not a lottery…. I am a child of a loving father who only wants good for me… so today… I choose life… and life more abundantly…. I choose to be the life-influencer to those around me… to empower and uplift and point people to the truth that God is Love and healing is for you.
Thank you for reading this post. It blesses me that my Overcomer stories have helped and encouraged so many of you…
Michael
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