Peace that Passes Understanding, Part 3: Something worth worrying about

The wait is almost over.  It’s almost time.  By the time most of you read this, I will most likely be in a drug induced coma, with tubes in more holes than I care to imagine.  This journey has been a surreal and almost unbelievable trip through some of the brightest and darkest places of my heart, mind, and soul. 

My thoughts and emotions are typically on my sleeve.  It isn’t often people have to ask what I’m thinking or feeling.  I like that way, mostly because I am a terrible liar.  I have found my experience with this tumor, has been very much like one of my favorite childhood movies.  The best way to describe it, would be like traveling through The Labyrinth. 

You are confused, you are shocked, you are completely disoriented by the fairy tale trouble you have found yourself in.  Lots strange people (your family and friends) come along to help you, but the truth is that they are all fighting their own battles, as well.  Then every time you think you are getting somewhere in this psychedelic, quirky, and terrifying maze of weird landscapes and strange creatures…David Bowie shows up in his uncomfortably revealing spandex jumpsuit and reminds you, just how lost you are.

Okay that’s unfair.  David Bowie has not visited me during the last month and a half, but for as many times as I have felt grateful and blessed by the unconditional love and kindness of my family and friends, I have also felt as if I was in the Bog of Eternal Stench.  It hasn’t been easy, but I must believe it is all worth it. 

I would never wish any of this on anyone.  I would not suggest any of you go out and get a brain tumor of your very own, no matter how great the salesman says it is, but I would be foolish not to recognize, how this experience has given my life a flavor, that others may never taste.  I hope I am not being overly dramatic, but no matter how close I am, or have been, or will be to a catastrophic brain event; you simply see life differently when faced with situations that shake your life and existence to the core.  You begin to think and re-think things that you have long assumed were galvanized steel.

Don’t worry.  This isn’t the part where I start telling you, how I have rethought my understanding of God.  This isn’t the part where I denounce my faith, and tell you I have been wrong all along.  On the contrary, I have felt closer to Jesus, then any point in my life.  Maybe it’s because I feel like I need him more than I ever have.  Maybe it’s because I finally realize what I have been searching for in my faith.

I have done a lot of soul searching over the last month and a half.  I realized how much I take my wife for granted, and how much I desperately need her.  I realized I make great big mountains out of things that are far less than mole hills.  I realized how easy it has been to pass offenses and bad attitudes down to your children, and how much more awful it sounds when it comes out of their mouths.  I realized that for a man with so many friends I can truly rely on, and so much family I can count on, with co-workers whom I can truly call family (not everyone is so lucky), and a church that I literally must turn away from coming to the hospital on surgery day to avoid overwhelming the staff and possibly the fire marshal’s suggested occupancy…I sure complain a lot.

I never felt as if I had ever truly felt the peace that passes understanding, as described in scripture.  I always felt as if God have left me for dead at times.  When I look at my life in hindsight, with tumor colored glasses, I can see what a huge baby I have. No, God did not give me peace in those times, mostly because I didn’t need it. God gives me peace now, more than ever, because I need it more than ever.  When my pleas and petition for peace from God, comes back empty and blank, then I now know, it’s time to check myself.

Is a one-hundred-dollar vehicle repair bill a bad thing? Not when you compare it to a three-thousand-dollar repair bill.  Is waking up at 3:15am so you can leave by 4:00am, and get to work at 5:00am, every morning, so bad?  Not compared to being laid off and without work for six months to a year.  Is having to treat strep throat, stomach flu, and sinus infections every single week in one of your kids the disease and pestilence described in Revelation in the bible?  Not when you have a child dying of bone cancer living in the hospital.  Is hearing opposing political, religious, and social views on Facebook or Twitter really going to make your head explode?  Not when you have a brain tumor causing blinding and debilitating migraines.

God gives you peace, when you need peace.  I can’t get angry at God, for not giving me peace for something that essentially is a “first-world problem”.  Do I praise him when my car gets me all the way to work, with no issues?  Probably not.  I sure get pissed off and beg for his mercy when it breaks down on the shoulder of the road. 

For the first time, in a long time, I am at peace.  I am at peace, when I should be freaking out.  I am at peace when I should be anxious and nervous.  This does not me I am with out concern, or allow worry to bubble up, but I am at peace.

I sit here in this hotel room, my wife.  I have finished my second to last anti-microbial/viral/bacterial scrub.  I have put the last application of inter-nostril anti-biotic ointment in my nose, and we have finished one of our last pre-op pray/crying sessions.  Now I keep typing, to avoid going to sleep. Not because I am fearful, but because that is what I do.  If I sleep, I might miss something.  There will be plenty of time to sleep when I am dead, which I have full confidence in all mighty God will not happen anytime soon.  I know my body needs rest, but every moment is more precious than the last, because it’s the one moment you can do anything about.

I want to live.  I want to love.  I want to fight.  I want to eat. I want to cry.  I want to laugh.  I want to create.  I want to win.  I want to lose.  I want to share the gospel, and be Jesus to every human I meet…every one.  I am ready to do that.  Life must be different from now on, otherwise this was all in vain, and I am just a stupid sack of meat, that got the short end of the stick.  I don’t believe that at all, and neither does the one created me, fearfully and wonderfully.

See You Sooooon.