WHEN THE ONCOLOGIST CALLS AND THE LORD SAYS, "Son, ..."

Think back on it, even just a little.  Do you realized how many times from our youth onward we who know we belong to God's family through our spiritual rebirth talk about "the end"?  My most recent "end times" phrase has come allive...so to speak.  I pray the author of the ditty they call an epitaph on my tombstone will include it.  Yes, it comes from deep within my personal and spiritual DNA; "Finish well."  "Wait!...Hey, what do you mean, 'FINISH'" ?!!

 

What if, suddenly, there is a number attached? Like a date, like so many years?  Like 5x365=1826..."more or less," so to speak?  It's the material of novels, drama, and comedies. Here's how USA Today put it: "Death bites. But dying while healthy, rich and free enough to drink life to the last drop is getting great press, thanks to 'Bucket List'".  The comedy about living to the fullest before you "kick the bucket" is three years old and still people are circulating things like, "100 Things To Do Before You Die".  It's great sport.  Unless there's a time frame.   

At lunch after our oncology consult, Carolyn and I drew up a bucket list, and
finishing Generational Fathering was on it.  The segment on the book site (remember, I'm still writing this with soninlaw, Matt) "The Long Ride" (as in "into the Sunset) has new meaning.  If you've read to this point, you may want to click on and save it. It's a good read and a "ponder prompter".

Our list isn't that big, surprsingly.  That's the value of a life fully lived with contentment, methinks.  But, maybe my love and I can squeeze our combined memoir in.   Special times with Cari and Matt and the grandwonders was on it; not just enjoying them but imprinting, guiding, teaching, telling stories from our lives.

"Perception," they say, "is everything."  So is timing. Carolyn and I have just reframed the tag line of life we adopted after our son's death.  We recite to ourselves and share it with others: "Life is short, life is hard, life is unfair, and it's end is uncertain."   So, be ready.

That's the point.  We are.  Ready, that is; really ready.  Would you believe even excited (me, more than Carolyn)? Life between here and "there" has definition.  Less likely to waste time in meaningless stuff.  Or buy meaningless stuff.  Or argue over meaningless stuff.  

Let me ease back on the mystery and angst for our friends.  There's piles of data, opinions, medical and pharmacological advances and all that.  I could tell you T3b-N1-M0 is not scarey, not hopeful, just clear.  Oncologists love it when YOU present the data and ask for confirmation.  All mine with the smile as big as his long Polish name had to do was agree or modify my, "So doctor, it looks to me I'm in early stage four.  The median stats say I'm good for probably five years, possibly more."  "That about sums it up," he said, his practiced stern affirmatoin looking more like a relieved grin.   Still, it's a time frame. "Short" or "long" is a matter of perspective.  And "GOOD for" is quite apt if I so-chose. 

A visiting pastor to our RV Resort Chapel congregation of "retired-and-then-somes" preached from Psalm 119 last Sunday.  Wonder why verse 50 leaped out as if illuminated from God's Hi-Liter?  "My comfort in my suffering is this: Your promise preserves my life."  Oh, there's more.  Much.  Like, verse 41, "May your unfailing love come to me, O LORD," and verse 58, "I have sought your face with all my heart; be gracious to me according to your promise."  Things like that.

End a post with a question pro bloggers say.  So, HOW ABOUT YOU?  Ready?  Will "short" and "its end is uncertain" catch you not ready to stand before a gracious but righteous God?  Your shoulders are not big enough to bear your sins (few or many), but Jesus's are.  And for the "ready" ones, are you GOOD for finishing well? 

Post your ponderings and pontificatons by clicking on "Comments"  just below the line down there.