Hope Beyond Cure

I’m sitting on my favourite bed, in my favourite room, writing to my favourite people! We’ve just got home from another visit to our oncologist. These are always anxious times and I tend to get fairly stressed around each visit. We were keen to learn about the results of my CT scan on Monday and to talk about what happens next. I’d been feeling more unwell than usual over the past week and we had a few questions to ask.

The good news is that the primary lung cancer has continued to reduce in size. This is a cause for rejoicing and I thank God for the positive benefits of the chemo. The shrinkage is unexpected, given that I’ve been on a maintenance chemo program and we were simply hoping to keep things in check. Six months ago the tumour was 26mm in diameter and it’s now shrunk to only 12mm. It makes me wonder if it can’t keep getting smaller until it vanishes altogether! However, the oncologist doesn’t see this happening and there are other factors involved. Seems bizarre to be held to ransom by something the size of a marble!

The bad news is that there is now clearer evidence of metastases. The cancer isn’t all in one place. Nothing new since the last scans, but evidence of the spread of cancer nonetheless. It would be so good if all the cancer was contained in the one tumour and all they needed to do was operate. Just cut it out! No more cancer! Clean bill of health! Sadly, this isn’t my story. Chemotherapy is designed to attack the cancer wherever it pops up, even in the places you can’t see, and thankfully it seems to have been doing it’s job pretty well.

This brings me to the ugly. Chemo has it’s side-effects and they can be pretty nasty. I’ve catalogued the various symptoms previously. Nausea, constipation, aching, skin rashes, lethargy, and so on, are all pretty standard. At least I’ve got my hair! But, I’ve begun to experience another effect that we need to take seriously… peripheral neuropathy. I get a burning sensation on the soles of my feet and palms of my hands, and it’s been getting worse in the last week or so. It’s a bit like pins and needles and makes my feet and hands feel tingly, hot and heavy. I walked into town the other day and had so much pain in my feet that I considered getting a taxi home. It’s been very concerning because walking is the easiest exercise for me to keep up.

While not a common side effect from my treatment, some patients do experience neuropathy in varying degrees. If ignored, it can leave severe and lasting damage. It’s resulted in some people becoming housebound or confined to a wheelchair.

Our oncologist is concerned by my symptoms and he’s recommended we cease the chemotherapy for a couple of cycles to see if the neuropathy improves. This will mean dropping Alimta, but continuing with the Avastin (which is not a chemo drug). I’m learning more and more that my treatment is a balancing act. You get wins in one area while accepting losses in another. I just want a lot more wins than losses! I’d love to keep charging on, bashing the cancer as hard as I can cope with, but it seems that I’ve found one of my limits already.

If you’re one who prays, then please speak to God about me over the next few weeks. We’d love the respite in chemo to clear up any symptoms of neuropathy AND we don’t want the cancer to grow or spread in this period. I hope this isn’t too much to ask for!

Thank you again for your support and for sharing this journey with us.

(first published in macarisms.com on 6/6/12)

It’s now six months since I was diagnosed with cancer. It feels like a landmark of some kind! The good news is I’m alive. The bad news is I sometimes don’t feel like it. Life has become a ‘chemo-sandwich’. I go into hospital and get poisoned, spend three weeks recovering, and then I do it all over again. The challenge is to put some nice stuff into the middle of the sandwich.

Here are some of the enjoyable bits I’ve found in my sandwiches…

• Going for walks with my wife
• Being invited out for a meal
• Reading some good books
• Sitting on the swing in the backyard, soaking up the sunshine
• Having a family golf day
• Sharing coffee with friends
• Going for walks with the dog
• Cheering on the Brumbies
• Preaching at church
• 10pin bowling with my boys
• Learning to write (blog posts)
• Chatting over lunch with friends
• Catching a couple of fish
• Visiting the Harley Davidson shop, and dreaming
• Having a good cry
• Buying myself a down-filled jacket
• Going for walks with friends
• Reading through 2 Corinthians
• Having friends come to visit
• Planning a holiday in Queensland
• Walking the Relay for Life with my family
• Playing Words with Friends with friends
• Going out to dinner
• Staying at home in front of the fire
• Going for walks on my own
• Drinking ginger beer
• Being inspired by others who are also doing it tough
• Learning more and more what it means to trust God in all things

Thank you once again for sharing our journey. 

(first published in macarisms.com on 4/6/12)

It’s a question many people have been asking me. And believe me, I’ve asked it myself. I’m not a smoker. I haven’t spent my life hanging around smokers. So how did I end up with a lung cancer? I know it’s not a smokers’ cancer, but that doesn’t explain why I have it.

There are lots of things that go through the mind. Is it genetic? My grandfather had cancer, my father has recently had cancer, and I haven’t explored the family tree any further. But each of these cancers are so different. There doesn’t appear to be any connections between them, other than the ‘C’ word.

Have I brought it on myself with overwork and stress? Being the pastor of a church may seem like a pretty cushy job, but I can tell you it ain’t! Mentoring a team of staff, managing a significant budget, coming up with talks each week, pastoring hundreds of people, juggling church leadership with a university ministry and sports chaplaincy, raising up and training leaders, running conferences, admin, change and rebuilding year after year. Then there’s the stuff that goes pearshaped, the breakdown in relationships, the staff conflicts, helping the schizophrenic who then turns on you, counselling couples with broken marriages, comforting grieving parents, and the list goes on. A friend once told me that you couldn’t pay him enough to do all that stuff! Not that I’d change this (not all of it anyway!) and I thank God for the opportunities he’s given me.

Or is it the imbalance of life, getting it wrong, living on stress and adrenalin, insufficient exercise, too many coffees, not taking my lunch to work, staying up late to finish off work, working on days off, not allowing enough time for the fun stuff? Where should I lay the blame?

There are some who believe that I must accept the blame. I’ve clearly done something to deserve it. Perhaps it’s spiritual karma that is causing the suffering. Maybe I’ve done something that’s resulted in me getting sick. Some Christians might claim that God is teaching me a lesson, or disciplining me, or punishing me for specific things I’ve done wrong. They might suggest if I own up to my actions then maybe I’ll be healed, or spared further suffering. Others would claim that Satan has me in his cross-hairs, wanting to damage not only my life, but my faith in God.

I reckon there could be some truth in some of the things above. Genetics, lifestyle, and spiritual factors may all play a part. But it’s not helpful to speculate or jump to conclusions about what lies behind it all. It’s tempting to fall into the trap of Job’s so-called ‘comforters’ and presume to speak for God. I find myself going back over my life, and words, and decisions, wondering if something I’ve done is responsible for the cancer. But I can’t find an answer and it probably doesn’t help. The truth is I haven’t been given a divine diagnosis. God hasn’t given me an explanation, and he may never. He’s under no obligation to do so.

I don’t know the reasons why I have this particular cancer at this particular time. But let me tell you what I do know! We live in a messed-up fallen world. The Christian explanation for this, is that we’ve all chosen to turn away from our creator and this has serious repercussions. We forfeit the joy of living in harmony with God. We experience the pain of fractured and broken relationships with one another. We damage ourselves and our environment through our selfishness. In short, we’ve turned our backs on God and we now live with the consequences. Pain, suffering, tragedy and grief have become a normal part of human experience. Cancer, my cancer, all cancers are part of this fallen world. This doesn’t explain why particular things happen to particular people, but it certainly puts them in context.

In fact, from the moment we’re born we live under the shadow of death. It’s hard to accept this when we’re young. Old age seems seems so far away, but it’s an obvious fact of life that each of us will die at some point. It may not be soon, but it’s guaranteed to happen. From a Christian perspective, we not only live under the shadow of death, we also live under the sentence of death. Death is God’s judgment for our spiritual anarchy. It sounds harsh, and it is. There’s nothing nice or natural about death.

You might be thinking, what a gloomy pessimistic post. Life sucks and then you die! Is this all there is?

Let me change tone. The Bible is not fundamentally a book about why we die, but about how we can live. God cares deeply about our suffering. Jesus has shared our human experience and endured greater pain than we could ever imagine. He was rejected, tortured and crucified for no human reason other than he was a threat to the religious establishment. And yet God had a purpose in this awful death… through one death to save many lives. Jesus paid the price for our rebellion (sin) so that we could live. He overcame death to give real hope to all who will trust him.

He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.  (Romans 4:25)

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.  (1 Peter 2:24)

For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.  (1 Peter 3:18)

Not only is there hope for individuals, but through the death and resurrection of Christ there is hope for this world. God promises a new creation. There’s a future for people struggling with chronic sickness and terminal illness. I don’t expect to be saved from death for, even if I am healed of my cancer, I will eventually die of something else. God’s word offers me a better and enduring hope beyond death. The final scenes in the Bible point to the wonder of what is to come. The language is a little unusual, dripping with images from other parts of the Bible, but the basic idea is clear. God isn’t done with us yet! He has better things in store for those who belong to him…

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
(Revelation 21:3-4)

What great words. What a tremendous hope. This momentary life is not all there is! There is hope and peace beyond the storm. Jesus has come back from the dead to reveal what lies ahead for all who will follow him.

(first published in macarisms.com on 22/5/12)

I’m about to preach to myself. In fact, I’m about to preach at myself. Every now and then I need a good talking to, and now is one of those times. Listen if you want. But if you don’t want to hear what I’m going to say to myself, then just stop reading!

I’m not happy. My breathing is uncomfortable. The pain in my chest cuts like a knife… especially when I cough or sneeze. Yawning hurts like crazy. My joints ache, my head hurts, my stomach complains, my skin flakes, my rashes burn, my nose bleeds, my mood changes, my patience runs thin, as does my hair, and yet, I am blessed!

How many people in our world or throughout history have had anything like the medical care that I take for granted? The drugs I’m given are the products of years of research, and millions of dollars of investment, from some of the smartest minds in the world. And they work. They attack the cancer, they shrink the tumours, and they destroy the bad cells. It hurts, and I hate it, but it’s a good thing. And I’m blessed to have such amazing treatment available!

I have specialists and GPs (one very special one!) and nurses who care for me. I have a family who loves me and watches over me. I have friends who call, write, visit, or support in practical ways. There must be so many who suffer alone, without care, without compassion and without hope. I do feel somewhat lonely and sad, but deep down I know that I’m blessed to experience the care and love of so many.

It might not seem like it, and I know that I can so easily forget it, but the reality is that I’m truly blessed. I have a hope that comes, not from anything medicine or people can offer, but from the trustworthy promises of God. In Jesus Christ, God has forgiven my selfish independence and accepted me as his own child. He has started my life over again, and assured me that nothing can separate me from his love. Nothing! As it says in Romans…

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Romans 8:35-39)

This is the reality of my blessing. It’s incomparable. It’s astonishing. It’s undeserved. And it’s available!

As I preach to myself, so I pray…

Heavenly Father,
Let me see things as they truly are.
Let me not be blinded by my selfishness.
Let me hold fast to the Your Word.
Let me count my blessings.
Amen

This morning Fiona and I were discussing wills. We’d had my will drawn up while I was in hospital, when things were looking pretty grim. We reckoned it was important to get my affairs in order. But, it’s no less important to attend to Fiona’s affairs, so we figured she should draw up a will too.

It’s a bit morbid writing wills, thinking about who we want to get what when we die. Mostly it’s about possessions… the house, cars, bank accounts, superannuation, life insurance, all the books, fishing tackle, camping gear, my ‘limited edition commemorative 2004 championship-winning embroidered and framed Brumbies jersey’… and some other stuff!

However, the big concern is not our stuff. It’s deciding who’ll look after the children if we’re taken from them. We want to make sure our children will be in good hands. We want people who’ll care for them, protect them, teach them, encourage them, discipline them and, most of all, love them. We want people who share our priorities and values and beliefs.

At the end of the day, it’s not about preparing to financially compensate our kids for losing their parents. It’s not about giving our children financial security. There’s no such thing really. We do our children a huge disservice if we teach them that life can be measured by money in the bank or possessions in the hand. We rob them of the joy of trusting God to meet their needs if we influence them to covet a potential inheritance.

Jesus famously taught…

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
(Matthew 6:25-27)

On another occasion, Jesus got caught up in a domestic dispute over an inheritance and he had these words of warning…

Someone in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me.” Jesus replied, “Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?” Then he said to them, “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”
(Luke 10:13-15)

What a great reminder. Our lives are not to be measured by how much we earn, or save, or have. We’re not the sum total of our mortgages, bank accounts, or life insurance. Economic measures have their place, but they don’t define who we are or what we’re worth.

As Christian parents, who believe in life after death with God for all who trust in Jesus, there’s a far more significant legacy we want to leave our children. One that can’t be measured by an accountant, or distributed by a solicitor. We want them to look forward to an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade — kept in heaven for you. (1 Peter 1:3-5)

This is not something we can give our kids, but God can! We can point them in the right direction. We can remind them of God’s generous offer of eternal life. We can model sitting loose to stuff, not trusting in hollow promises of financial security, and trusting in God for all our needs. As Jim Elliot wrote before losing his life, he is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.

We can’t write these things in our wills, but we can pray that God will write them on the hearts of each of our children.

(first published in macarisms.com on 7/5/12)

Patience has never been my strong suit. You’ve probably heard about the person who prays, “Lord make me patient, and do it now!” How does God answer that one?!

I just want to be better… now! I want to get off the chemo and onto drugs that don’t hurt… now! I want to be fit again… to run, lift weights, throw a football, climb stairs easily, catch waves, join my friends on bike rides… NOW!

The family are off being active and I’m just climbing out of bed after a nanna nap! Do I take panadol for the chest pain, the sore head, and the aches in my joints? Or do I hop back into bed and hope it will go away? Do I push through the pain barriers? Or do I rest and let the body catch up? I’ll tell you, there are no easy answers.

Most of my life I’ve maintained a reasonable level of fitness. Running, swimming, walking, riding, lifting. I’ve never been a top class athlete, but I’ve never felt disabled either. That is, until now. And I don’t like it!

This year I’d planned to be active, really active. I was going to be a barra fishing, pig shooting, motorbike riding, four-wheel driving, pastor in the NT! We were looking forward to a physical, outdoors lifestyle. And now I’m stuck inside, hiding from the cold, unable to shake a cold. So what on earth does God have to teach me?

Patience… I’m a slow learner! And I usually have to learn the hard way. There’s lots I need to learn, but patience has to be right up there.

I need to be reminded that this world is not the way God intends it to be. I’m not the way God intends me to be. It’s not how things started, and it’s not how they’ll finish. God has big plans and he’s not done yet. The Apostle Paul reflects on the chaos and suffering he sees in this world and he helps us to get things back in perspective – God’s perspective.

I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
(Romans 8:18-25)

I don’t have to be satisfied with how things are… because God is ok with me longing for things to be better. I don’t have to pretend that the world really is wonderful… because God reminds me that it’s been subjected to frustration. There’s no point putting on a brave face and doing all I can to improve my lot… because God has put into place his plan to renew all things. So what does he ask of me?

To put my hope in him, and to wait, patiently.

This has been a heavy week. CT scans on Monday of chest, abdomen, pelvis, and brain. Maintenance chemo on Tuesday with Alimta and Avastin, no more Carboplatinum. Appointment with our oncologist this morning, to interpret scans, check how I’m going, and confirm plans looking ahead.

I say it’s been a heavy week, because it has been focused on the disease and it’s been a reality check. We’ve been able to (largely) forget the seriousness of the cancer in recent days, especially as we spent a lovely family time at the beach over the Easter week. But then, we come out of holiday land and back home to face facts. And some of the facts aren’t too good. We keep being reminded that the treatment is not considered curative and that the best we can hope for is to slow down the progress of the cancer, while seeking to minimise the bad effects of treatment. Of course, this is still good. I do thank God for the availability of quality medical care, access to good information, the support of others who understand all this stuff (especially my wife), and the hope that comes from the treatment available.

People often ask what they can pray for me. There are lots of things: patience, good use of my time, strategic ministry opportunities, the capacity to love and serve my wife and children, the strengthening of my (and my family’s) trust in God, availability of the targeted Crizotinib drug (currently only approved in the US, and made available in Australia within certain trials or after evidence of cancer progression from standard chemo), and other things. But high on the list I keep asking people to pray for complete healing. That God will, either by medical means or a complete miracle, free me from this disease.  Many of us have been praying this for 4 months now, and I keep hoping that it will either keep shrinking every day, or that one day I will wake up and it’ll all be gone!

This week has been tough because we’ve been reminded that the cancer is still there. The CT shows a very small reduction in the primary tumour and no evidence of any new tumours or spread to the brain. However, it has highlighted a couple of nodes with evidence of cancer, and we are unclear as to whether this is new, whether they have increased in size since the last scan, or whether they were present earlier without being clearly detectable. I think I was hoping for a profound reduction in the cancer. Perhaps for them to say that it’d almost disappeared!

So far the new chemo regime seems like it will be more manageable. Although it is normally 2 or 3 days after treatment that the side effects start to get bad, and they can last for more than a week after that, so I shouldn’t make too many predictions here! My ‘muck in the lungs’ problem is still evident, but I’m about to take a fourth course of antibiotics and it does seem to be slowly getting better. Please pray that it gets completely cleared up.

I’ve been a bit miserable over the last few days. For some reason last night I was picturing my own funeral in my mind, with Fiona and the kids deeply saddened at my passing. This led to a few tears and me being rather melancholic today. My kids are too young for this, I thought. I want to enjoy more time with them yet. I need to make a priority of investing in my family, filling their minds with the promises of God, and depositing good investments into their memory banks. Of course this is true whether I have a months, years or decades. And I need to keep reminding myself that God will look after them. He is an expert at it, with or without my help!

(extract from macarisms.com on 18/4/12)

Having cancer doesn’t do much for one’s body image. Shortly after coming home from hospital I visited a friend’s pool with my family. I’d undergone 2 surgeries and had some good looking scars where the tubes went between my ribs. I’d lost about 13 kilos, but without becoming trim and taut. It was like my muscles had melted and disappeared, and those that were left had slipped down my body and become fairly useless. I didn’t much like what I saw in the mirror. And neither did my youngest. Sitting beside the pool he said to me, “Just as well you’re married dad. Otherwise you’d never get anyone to marry you, looking like that!” Mmmm! 

And a strange thing happened on Saturday. We’d been out watching the Brumbies demolish the Rebels in an awesome game of rugby, and I came home planning to check out the highlights on the television. As I was watching the wrap up after the game, the camera showed one of the Rebels players speaking with a bloke wearing a Brumbies hoodie on the field. I looked closely trying to work out who it was. And then I realised… it was me! I didn’t recognise myself on the TV. A serious lack of hair. An unwanted increase in girth. And I seemed to have aged 10 years in 4 months.

Today I felt like a human pin cushion. One injection for blood tests. A cannula to pump radioactive fluid into my veins for CT scans to the torso and brain. A needle full of vitamin B12 to help me make blood cells. 29 acupuncture needles to strengthen my immune system and alleviate pain. Another 9 tiny needle tabs to continue the benefit of the acupuncture. All that in one day!

And the killer chemo drugs, the ‘weed killer’ they pump into my body. The steroids, anti-nauseals, antihistamines, pain killers, vitamins, iron tablets, herbal medicines, laxatives, reflux tablets, and more. My kitchen resembles a pharmacy. The only drug I enjoy is the one that comes out of the shiny machine in the corner!

It’s not just the treatments, or people’s comments, or looking at myself in the mirror. I know that things aren’t what they once were. Shortness of breath, aches and pains, muscular weakness, nanna naps during the day, waking up during the night to visit the toilet, and the list continues. I keep hoping things will get better, but they might not. Somethings improve, and others get worse. And I’m not going to reverse the ageing process. None of us are!

There are some things I can do. Eat less, or at least cut out some of the ‘comfort’ snacks. Exercise more, without compromising my capacity to recover from chemo and fight the cancer. Not get hung up about what I look like, although I am under instruction to have a shave every day!

Our culture makes things harder for us. We are obsessed with image. We idolise youth and we’re constantly being tempted by strategies to make ourselves look and feel younger. But, why can’t we face the reality? People get sick. People grow old. Bodies wear out. One day we’ll die. We don’t like it, and nor should we, but we can’t change it.

The Bible candidly reminds us of this reality. One day every one of us will die and meet our Maker. We’re called to live in the light of this reality, not to try to hide it or avoid it. The ageing process reminds us to consider God while we can, to enjoy God as we live this life. Not to ignore him, or put him off until it’s too late. As it says in the book of Ecclesiastes:

Remember your Creator
in the days of your youth,
before the days of trouble come
and the years approach when you will say,
“I find no pleasure in them”—
before the sun and the light
and the moon and the stars grow dark,
and the clouds return after the rain;
when the keepers of the house tremble,
and the strong men stoop,
when the grinders cease because they are few,
and those looking through the windows grow dim;
when the doors to the street are closed
and the sound of grinding fades;
when men rise up at the sound of birds,
but all their songs grow faint;
when men are afraid of heights
and of dangers in the streets;
when the almond tree blossoms
and the grasshopper drags himself along
and desire no longer is stirred.
Then man goes to his eternal home
and mourners go about the streets.
Remember him—before the silver cord is severed,
or the golden bowl is broken;
before the pitcher is shattered at the spring,
or the wheel broken at the well,
and the dust returns to the ground it came from,
and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
(Ecclesiastes 12:1-7)

These words were written hundreds of years before Jesus. The author reflects on the meaningless emptiness he sees in life. Life’s experiences can be wonderful, they can be awful, but either way death bringing everything to a halt. We come and go so quickly, like a mist or a vapour. Death is the big full stop to life.

Jesus frees us from this depressing analysis. Life is no longer without meaning or purpose, because we see clearly that death is not the end. The resurrection of Jesus offers purpose and hope, both for this life and the life to come. We don’t have to panic and fight the decay of our bodies at all costs. This life matters deeply, but it’s not all there is.

The Apostle Paul speaks of our bodies as being like a tent, a temporary dwelling. He contrasts this with the image of a permanent home, a heavenly building, a resurrected body:

Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.
(2 Corinthians 5:1-8)

Jesus can free us from being obsessed with how we appear, with trying to stay young at any price. He can lift us beyond the depressing observation that one day we will be dead and gone, and ultimately forgotten. More than this, he reminds us that life is not all about our self image or how others see us. What matters much more is how God sees us, and what God is doing in and through us. If we’re willing to put our trust in Jesus, then we can be confident that…

Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. (2 Corinthians 4:16)

(first published in macarisms.com on 16/4/12)