There are few sentences in the world that will stop you dead in your tracks as fast as, “You have a lump.” Like hitting a brick wall.
The invincible, indestructible you suddenly feels like a paper airplane in a hail storm…helpless and going down fast.
And in those first days of waiting, you examine every move you’ve ever made and you evaluate your next with more precision when you face the possibility of eminent departure. And though you know you could slam into a tree today or fall from the sky tomorrow, there is somehow less fear of instant death than to slowly diminish before the eyes of those you love.
And when the doctor says those words…you think about your soul. You wonder if you really are as right with God as you’d previously thought. And that ‘Chrisitan in a foxhole” phenomena is very real in the wee hours of the morning as you lay in bed and try to wrap your brain around the universe and where you play a part…and if that part will ever really have mattered.
You wonder what you did wrong. You wonder if the food you ate or the air you breathed or even the water you drank contributed and if you could have prevented the inevitable by simply being smarter ten years ago. You wonder if you are slowly, but surely, killing your children with the habits you’ve instilled and the future you’ve created that follows in the footsteps of your own. You wonder…if it’s your own damn fault because you have to blame someone…and blaming God will only cause more trouble in an already troubled heart.
You plan, without telling anyone, how you will handle it if the news is bad. You intend to be stoic…strong…a champion…even knowing as you promise yourself this that in reality you will crumble to the floor in a heap and scream and cry and pound your fist at the injustice.
And then… you will rise. You will be stoic. You will have faith. Because really…what other choice do you have? After all, your children will be watching.
And then, in that moment of joy when the lumps are benign, you realize that someone today didn’t get that same news. Someone, at that very same moment, was facing an entirely different reality. Someone, somewhere, with a family…loved ones…a life… just hit that brick wall.
