Colonoscopy

Today I had my first colonoscopy.  (Did he just share that publically?)

Yes...  Yes I did.  

My Dad died at age 53 of cancer that started in his colon.  I'm 40 now.  It seemed reasonable to be proactively preventative.

Moving on from that though, there I was laying around in this pre-procedure space curtained off from the rest of the world waiting to be rolled in when a doctor joined the folks behind the curtain next to me.  

Curtains only offer privacy to certain degrees.  Curtains are defenseless to a doctors direct toned voice.  I heard every word of what I'll share next.

"We found the bleeding right away.  It was sourced by a sizable mass near the bottom of the colon.  Given the size and location of the mass it is certainly cancerous."

{looooooong pause}

"It is hard to know now if it is cancer of the colon or the rectum.  What I would like to do is set up labs for today and meet with you tomorrow to discuss where we go from here."

At this point I flashed back 20 years.  I wasn't there when the doctor broke the news to my Dad and Mom then.  I was now.  

The conversation between the doctor and the gentleman, whom I presume to be the woman's husband, continued.  The woman was still coming up from the medication.  I'm sure she missed most of the dialogue that ensued.

The doctor began with possibilities related to treatments, though with no certainties.  

"Well how serious is this?  What if we choose to not have any treatment?  What's the worst that could happen?"  The gentleman sounded hopeful.

"She will die."  The doctor kept with his direct bedside manner. 

What followed was a tangled mess of questions that should have been rhetorical.  Each question further convinced me that this couple has never been down this road before with each other or those near them.  

I began to weep for this couple.  I wanted to pull back the curtain and invite them to pray with me.  My sense was that would be inappropriate in a setting like this.  So I lifted my hand toward the curtain and began to pray.  

Several moments later a patient was wheeled back from a procedure and placed behind the curtain on the other side of me.  Soon the doctor arrived and opened with this:  "Good news!  Everything looks great.  No polyps."  

I had several more minutes to lay there and process these two life stories to my right and to my left.  The story on my left, their life will continue; business as usual.  Vacations, family dinners, shopping trips, graduations, grand kids, etc.  The story on my right, their life has been forever altered.  Vacations will be canceled.  Sick leave from work will be exhausted.  Finances will become very tight.  Doctors and treatments and scans will be their new reality.  

And yet I wonder who is better off?  I wonder who has the greater potential now to lean into a Strength that is altogether otherworldly.  Trials have that effect on us.  Business as usual often draws us into our own strength, or at least a metered trust in God that assumes "I'll sort this one out God, you get that one, I'll get those two over there, etc."  

Paul reflected on this reality in 2 Corinthians 12.  Remember the whole "thorn in my flesh thing?"  After humbling admitting his thrice time appeal to God to take from him what manner of suffering he may have been experiencing, Paul wraps up the context with this...

"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'  Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.  For when I am weak, then I am strong."

...a strong that is unlike any other strong.  This will be my prayer for Terry (guessing on the spelling).  That was the name of the lady behind the curtain to my right.  I'll never meet her.  I have no idea what she looks like, any more than I have an idea of what the guy on my left looks like.  But I can pray over her and her husband that in this season of weakness and hardship and utter calamity, they may find strength in Jesus Christ.