Category: suffering

Jul 01

“I thought I was invincible!”

Terry Musser thought he had it all…until he lost his health and discovered all he had been missing.

“I thought I was invincible,”  the 70-year-old associate real estate broker told me as we recently chatted. “I had commercials on TV and for years was one of the top Realtors in the Tri-County area. I felt like I had everything.”

But when February 2024 rolled around, Terry didn’t feel quite so invincible.

Severe episodes of vomiting led Terry to drive himself to the ER (still feeling slightly invincible!) Doctors determined he was “spewing bile” so they inserted a nasogastric tube and placed two stents in his bile duct. At first, tests did not detect malignancy, but eventually a diagnosis was made: pancreatic cancer spread into nearby lymph nodes.

“They kept saying ‘you have cancer’ and I kept saying ‘no, I don’t’,” Terry recalled. “It was really hard to believe.”

Despite the fact Terry and I live only about 10 miles apart and were attending the same (large) church, we didn’t know one another when he was diagnosed. But then a copy of Peace in the Face of Cancer came in the mail from a stranger in Texas who his sister “happened” to meet. And then a copy of When GOD & Cancer Meet was gifted from a local friend.

Terry’s girlfriend Deb knew of me from our church, so we met and prayed together in the foyer one Sunday.  Shortly after that, Terry had an 8.5-hour Whipple procedure, which removed the head of the pancreas, duodenum, gallbladder and part of the bile duct. (Only about 20-percent of pancreatic cancer patients are candidates for this surgery.)

Terry and I had some heart-to-heart talks and he decided to have the recommended chemo, designed to increase the slim possibility of a cure.

Before his diagnosis, Deb had been trying to get Terry more involved in the church, but he wasn’t interested.

“She was kind of a pain in the butt,” Terry said with a smile. “Even though I was going to church I was minding my own business and just wanted to sit in the back and rush out to an open house at 1 o’clock,” he explained.

No photo description available.

“Team Musser”: Terry & his his real estate agent daughters

“But I kind of feel like the cancer was a gift–of lifestyle change, mind change and heart change,” Terry explained. “I always thought I didn’t need all that, but I was full of myself. 

“I was into yoga and Eastern religions, and I was always searching, searching, searching for something,” he added. “I was a ‘party man,’ but I haven’t had a drink in a year-and-a-half and I don’t miss it.”

Terry’s cancer/faith journey led him to slowing down his “exhausting” lifestyle. He still works when able, but lets his two daughters handle most of his busy agency, which employs another nine agents. He spends time enjoying caring for plants, scenic train rides, playing pickleball, reading inspirational books, attending a weekly men’s Bible study, and memorizing his favorite scripture,  Psalm 23.

“I found real faith and I feel less anxiety now with cancer than I did before without cancer.”

Recently Terry got the discouraging news that cancerous cells have shown up in fluid removed from his abdomen and he has restarted chemo.

“I thought I was put on this earth to help people with the big (real estate) decisions, but now I feel like I’m being kept alive to just help people,” he said. “I have a higher purpose than real estate.”

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Open in your browser to hear the music video “Still Water (Psalm 23) ” by Leanne Crawford, Aspire Christian Music–less than 4 minutes long!

Jun 17

Easy or hard: Which would you choose?

1st grade

3rd grade

It was early fall 1960 and my family recently had moved from Ohio to California.  I loved first-grade in the Buckeye State, but second grade apparently was “boring” in the Golden State where reading and math textbooks were the same ones I already completed.

My mother said I usually walked home from school, didn’t want to talk about anything, and then threw up. I would have suspected the cafeteria food or my tight perm, but  my parents, my teacher, and the principal got together and decided on a course of action.

After work that Friday, Dad sat on the edge of my bed with me. I don’t remember how the conversation started, but I definitely recall how it ended.

“So do you want to stay in second grade and have EASY work? Or go to third grade and have HARD work?”

With just-turned-seven-year-old exuberance, I replied: “I want to go to third grade and have HARD work, Daddy!”

On Monday morning, I took my crayon box out of my desk and marched down the hall to Miss Milford’s class, where I happily found “hard” work and stopped puking.

Pretty sure that was the last time in my life I voluntarily chose hard instead of easy.

Remember those Staples’ “easy” buttons from about 20 years ago? Personally, I would like the phrase “That was easy!” to describe my everyday life! I’m always on the lookout for ways to make life easier–for myself or people I care about. As I pray for the hurting people I know (and myself!), I always hope the answer/healing/resolution comes quickly.

But more often than not, it seems those prayers do not afford me a chance to respond with an “easy” button. Not only does life often not get any easier, sometimes it gets a whole lot harder–with no relief or explanation in sight.

I realize that many of you know exactly what I mean because  I’ve sat with you while you heard bad news. I’ve prayed with you when your world turned upside down. And I’ve cried with you as the worst actually happened.

You and I both know that life has not always been easy for you and your loved ones.

The word “easy” only appears in the Bible nine times–at least in the New Living Translation. Proverbs has a verse about lizards being “easy” to catch and the OldTestament prophet Ezekiel warns that scattered sheep make an “easy” target for predators.

But my favorite “easy” verse is found in Matthew 11:

“Then Jesus said, ‘Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens,
and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you,
because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
 For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.’”

I need to forget about the “easy” button and hoping to make life easy-peasy. Scripture never promises that God won’t give us more than we can handle, but Billy Graham preached and I believe:Billy Graham

“The will of God will not take us where the grace of God cannot sustain us.”

― Billy Graham

A yoke is not designed for one animal and neither were you designed to bear your burdens alone. Let Jesus carry them with you, resting in the sure knowledge that He will not take you where He cannot keep you.
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Open in your browser to hear “Rest for Your Soul” by Austin French.

Apr 22

What “Granny Clampett” Taught Me about Love

If you’ve ever seen that spunky character Granny Clampett on the old television show The Beverly Hillbillies, you have a pretty good mental picture of my friend Alice. She was about the size of her TV counterpart with long, salt-and-pepper hair pulled back in a tight bun. Her blue eyes danced mischievously despite the fact she was nearing 80.

And from her I learned what God’s love is really like.

Alice’s ramshackle two-story home was on a road I traveled often and occasionally I’d see her outside.  Who is that tiny flannel-clad lady swinging such a big ax?

In the spring of 1995, Alice’s world met mine.

Her older daughter brought her to my Cancer Prayer Support Group meeting. In true Granny Clampett style, Alice didn’t particularly trust strangers and firmly announced that she didn’t know why she had come and wasn’t going to participate. 

But over the ensuing weeks, we all warmed to one another and Alice became like a favorite “granny” to our group. Soon she was suggesting some of her home remedies for the physical woes we experienced:

Soak walnuts in whiskey for a few days to relieve diarrhea.

Nibble on a bit of peach pit for heartburn. “I know they have laetrile in them and it’s poisonous, but it doesn’t hurt me,” she insisted.

For respiratory problems, Alice swore by a mixture of honey, lemon, whiskey, and linseed oil: “If there’s somethin’ down there in your chest, that’ll bring it up!” 

Photo by Vlad Deep on Unsplash

Alice and I developed a special bond because we had the same kind of cancer. Not much else about our lives was the same. 

She had had a tough life, but remembered having felt “a great love for God” when she was only 3. As an adult she took her own three children to church faithfully until their teens.

But then something happened that made Alice feel she wasn’t welcome and she stopped attending. When she came to our support group, it was her first time in decades to set foot inside a church building.

 Every month Alice came to our support-group meeting and occasionally on a Sunday morning, I’d see her sitting in our congregation, smiling at me.

In the spring of 1996 I asked her to be my guest at our church’s Mother-Daughter Banquet. When I picked her up, my jaw dropped…Hair obviously freshly washed and piled in a soft bun. A  bright pink skirt-and-sweater set, accented by a matching jewelry ensemble. Plus a light perfume fragrance. 

“Wow! Do you look beautiful!” I exclaimed. She was beaming now and handed me a crocheted cross bookmark. I told her I would put it my Bible, where I would see it every day and think of her. 

At the banquet, we laughed and even cheered when she won a prize for the oldest mother. 

A few months later Alice was bedridden, nearing death. We read the Psalms together and she announced that she was “ready to go home to God.”

“I love God,” she kept whispering.

“He loves you, too,” I promised her–grateful that she had found her way back to Him.

 

I can’t recall the first time Alice told me “You’re my best friend.” But I do remember feeling embarrassed by her pronouncement, knowing I had done so little for her. I resisted the temptation to protest, thanked her and hugged her frail body close to mine.

I told her I loved her and that she would be my forever friend…It was our last earthly conversation.

And that’s how my friend Alice taught me about “the overwhelming, never-ending reckless love of God…I couldn’t earn it, and I don’t deserve it.”

Excerpted from When GOD & Cancer Meet ©Lynn Eib, 2002
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Be sure to open in your browser to hear “Reckless Love” by Cory Asbury.

Mar 11

Are you as contented as a 2-year-old?

A dozen years ago I was on our deck serving an early morning breakfast to my oldest grandchild, Bauer, 2½. Thanks to my husband’s green thumb, the deck was bursting with beautiful blooms and as I stumbled around, chiding my foggy brain to wake up, little Bauer let out a small toddler sigh.

“It’s lovely out here,” he said with a sweet smile. “We have everything we need.”

Ah, contentment.

A bowl of multigrain Cheerios with milk, a Lightning McQueen sippy cup of juice, the beauty of nature, and a day with grandma—what more could you possibly want?

Maybe a clear PET scan? Perhaps a day without turmoil? How about not struggling with depression? No more medicine side-effects would be nice. An insurance company that didn’t balk at paying for what the doctor ordered would be really great.

It’s difficult to have childlike contentment when we live in a grown-up world where in the U.S. alone, a new cancer diagnosis is made every 30 seconds and  someone is identified with Alzheimer’s every 65 seconds. On top of those sobering statistics, every second the political fight rages around us seemingly unabated.

It’s not easy to find contentment while watching ourselves or a loved one deal with  physical/emotional/mental assault.

I remember many years ago, our dear friends, Don and Jean, found their world turned upside down when she was diagnosed with inoperable, stage 4 non-small cell  lung cancer. The retired schoolteachers frantically began searching for contentment.

“I was shocked,” she told me at the time. “I thought I was too healthy to get cancer. I was doing all the ‘right’ things to be a healthy person—never smoking, eating right, exercising, weight control, regular checkups and all that.”

After that frightening diagnosis, both Don and Jean tried to live in the moment, but the admonition to “take one day at a time” was “the opposite” of their teaching careers.

“As teachers we always had to look ahead and plan for another day,” they explained.

Learning to live one day at a time—and live it to the fullest (like contentedly watching a Maine vacation sunset)—was not an easy task.

“I think both of us in our own way just turned this whole thing over to God,” Don recalled. “For me it was putting total faith in His plan—knowing it’s a perfect plan—even if I didn’t understand it all.”

I’ve thought often about my grandson’s contented sentiment, especially mornings when I sit down with my to-do list, ready to organize everything that I think needs to be done that day! Sometimes I pause, smile to myself and say: “It’s lovely here and we have everything we need.”

Perhaps that’s a sentiment with which you could start your day?  The words of a toddler could be described as childish, but if you have total faith in a loving God, they can become childlike trust.

I remember that peaceful feeling when my newly delivered, just-nursed firstborn slept in my arms. All the hours of terrible back labor and exhaustion were forgotten. The future still was unknown, but with the psalmist I could say:

 

Of one thing I am certain: my soul has become calm, quiet, and contented in You.
Like a weaned child resting upon his mother, I am quiet. 
Psalm 131:2 The Voice Bible

And on this promise I still can rest:

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said,
“Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5

 It is lovely here in my soul and with God I have everything I need.
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Please open in your browser to hear the music video “If I Got Jesus” by Ben Fuller. (I liked the words and music so much, I decided to ignore the grammar mistakes! 🙂 )

Feb 25

Anyone need a “One-Minute Pause?”

I know those of you reading this blog have many burdens on your hearts. Some for friends and family. Some for crises you’ve heard or read about. And others for situations which haven’t even happened, but you fear they will.

Me, too.

And sometimes it feels overwhelming.

That’s why I’m so thankful I came across bestselling author and counselor John Eldredge’s “everyday practices for a world gone mad.”

“You’ve got to release the world…people, crises, trauma, intrigue, all of it,” Eldredge advises. “There has to be sometime in your day where you just let it all go. All the tragedy of the world, the heartbreak, the latest shooting, earthquake–the soul was never meant to endure this…It’s way too much. Your soul is finite. You cannot carry the sorrows of the world. Only God can do that. Only He is infinite.”

When I first read those words, I felt such relief. All of the day’s sad/disturbing/painful stories were too much for my soul to bear.  And that was ok because it’s not my job to bear them.

“Somewhere, sometime in your day, you’ve just got to release it,” Eldredge adds. “You’ve got to let it go.”

We do that, he says, by stopping throughout the day for a “One-Minute Pause” as we pray:

“I give everyone and everything to You, God.”

I love how The Message Bible paraphrases the call of Jesus to lay down our burdens:

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life.
I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it.
Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you.
Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.
Matthew 11:28-30

Eldredge describes the One-Minute Pause as an invitation to “benevolent detachment,” which is the ability to let things go–“not so much physically, but emotionally, soulfully.”

It’s not a call to stop caring, but to surrender all those cares to the One who ultimately is in control.

This releasing of our heartfelt concerns to God helps clear out our “cluttered soul,” Eldredge explains.

It’s a “turning over into the hands of God whatever is burdening us and leaving it there,” he adds.

We empty our souls of the burdens we never were meant to carry and the Lord fills our souls with what we always really needed: Himself.

Go ahead and breathe deeply. Then take a One-Minute Pause to pray:

I give everyone and everything to You, Lord.

Then pray it again every time you find yourself trying to carry the burdens your soul never was meant to bear.

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Please open in your browser to hear  “Come to Me (The Rest Song)” by Steven and Hannah Musso. (Click on CC at the bottom for Closed Caption lyrics.)

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