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Tony
Snow, Dead at 53
There
may be some who do not know Tony Snow and
others who do know him. Casting aside the fact that
he worked with President Bush as his press secretary
until his recent reoccurrence of cancer, I hope you
will read his testimony. If you think it is worth while, pass it along
to someone, for you never know who might just need this testimony.
Commentator and broadcaster Tony Snow announced that he had colon
cancer in 2005. Following surgery and
chemotherapy, Snow joined the Bush Administration in
April 2006 as press secretary.
Unfortunately, on March 23, 2007, Snow, 51, a
husband and father of three, announced 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 has resigned
since, to pursue " other interests."
It needs little intro... it speaks for itself.
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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 significance 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 chance s 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."
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For those who are not ready to meet their maker, this
can be a time of getting ready. For more information, (CLICK
HERE)
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