So, when I was diagnosed with testicular cancer, I prayerfully put myself in Gods presence to listen. I wanted to learn the meaning of my illness and how I was now to live. During the next couple of weeks, the part of my mind that is visual, presented me with powerful, stimulating images. Their symbolic meaning spoke to me of the battle for healing and also of changes I needed to make in my life. God was, I believed, directing my thoughts and decisions as I put myself in the Spirit and gave attention to Gods active and loving communication. I wrote pages and pages in my journal and shared some of them with a community of people who gathered to pray with my wife, Juanita, and me.
The weakness of my body, day after day, was really difficult for me. I wanted to do something about it. I wanted to compensate for it with a joyful spirit. I wanted to pray my way out of it. But it wasn't to be. I was weak and lethargic. Unplugged. I was as tired after sleeping as I was before. I wanted it not to impact my relationship with Juanita, our sons and daughters, or others who visited. But, of course, it did. It was the reality of who I was. Strength and power were what I wanted. Weakness was what I had.
Gradually, however, I became aware that something very important was going on which Id not been noticing. And to my surprise, I began to realize it was a kind of prayer. Someone was praying inside of me, in spite of myself.
While I still felt like zero, a Voice spoke in me: "Lee, God is as active in you for your healing in these empty hours as in the hours of your high activity and fervent praying." I was so relieved. I cried. I wasn't feeling very lovable, but somehow that assurance came.
Romans 8:26-27 describe what I was experiencing.
Knowing that my life on this earth would end was not new knowledge, but feeling it inside was a new experience, a different knowing. I grieved when I thought of never being able to live those somedays. In the sadness though, a question emerged: "How do I live these days of low energy in which Im more aware of having to let go of things than doing them?"
Once formed, the question echoed often through the empty spaces of my depressed soul. One day as it reverberated through my inner landscape, an answer took shape. "With love," a voice spoke, "With great love." My mood shifted.
Surprised at what happened I tested the sequence several times. First I posed the question. Then I waited for the answer. Each time I heard it. And each time my mood lifted.
I began to practice doing the simple things with love. I loaded and unloaded the dishwasher with thoughts of love. It was very different from thoughts such as "If I didn't have to do dishes, I could do more important things." Or, "It seems Im doing more than my share of this mundane stuff." I practiced waiting in love while the computer started up instead of fidgeting and scolding the machines sloth. On days when I could drive, yellow lights at the intersections became reminders to brake, to stop and to refocus my life in love, not accelerate and hurry.
When I told Juanita about this inner drama, I wept. My tears surprised me. It was a further clue that what I was learning was of great consequence. Juanita was excited because she had felt walled out by my depressed self, troubled and discouraged by my denial that I was depressed. Now she had access again.
I realized how dark the theater had been for several weeks. Now it was apparent that in that darkness and in the vast emptiness behind the stage of my soul, God had been forming divine and eternal thoughts to present to me: "With love, Lee. Live these days with great love." It chanted inside of me many times throughout the day... and still does.
My grandfather, who died at 97, and my grandmother who preceded him,
often spoke with me about their anticipation of the life beyond this one.
The more Grandpas body weakened and yielded to the forces of its corruptibility,
the more Eternal Life within him witnessed with anticipation and excitement
to the life he would live in some as yet unseen realm of reality. In his
Dutch-accented English he would sing with gusto,
Three months ago, his son, my father, died. For many years, I heard dad say, "To depart and be with the Lord is far better" (Philippians 1:23). But only in this last year can I speak those words from my heart. First, I had to lose the heart that couldn't say them. I feel blessed beyond measure that two men from whom I am descended could boldly affirm how life everlasting put this life in true perspective. Anticipating the life outside of this space-time box gives the essential vantage point for living this one, not overpricing its worth, but valuing it sanely.
I am not alone in this negligence. Time magazine had an article by David Van Biema titled "Does Heaven Exist?" (March 24, 1997), which reported on how thoroughly neglected the topic of the life hereafter is in American religion. "It used to be," the article states, "that the hereafter was virtually palpable, but American religion now seems almost allergic to imagining it. Is paradise lost?" The Time article tells about Jeffrey Burton Russells' book A History of Heaven, calling it a well-done piece that gets past all the cliches. To talk about Heaven is to refer to reality itself, Russell says. Everything we call reality on this side of death is less real by comparison. As C.S. Lewis knew, this world is "a Shadowland", no more, and no less. The greatest reality lies beyond it.
So I am paying more attention than before to the many places in the Bible which speak of the mystery of life yet to be. One of those places is I Corinthians 15:5...
Listen!
I will tell you a mystery. We will not all die, but we will all be changed....
For this perishable body must put on imperishability. Or I John 3:2f:
Beloved, we are Gods children now; what we will be has not yet been
revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like
him, for we will see him as he is.Gradually I found heart again. Or more truthfully, while my heart was lost and I sat and journeyed in the great Emptiness, God was remodeling my heart. When the Holy Spirit restored it to me, some areas had been redesigned. Greater love is now possible. Weakness can be a sterling virtue. I can perceive the Spirit praying in my empty prayerlessness -- mighty prayers too profound and deep for any words I can form. And Life Everlastings smile attracts me. As much as I like this life, and as much as I have to live for, it is still true that "to depart and be with the Lord is far better."