Aug 19
It’s one thing to be given a cancer diagnosis. It’s another matter to be told there is no known cure for that cancer. And it’s a whole other ballgame to learn there’s no recognized effective treatment either. My oncologist, Dr. Marc Hirsh, has been smacked with this reality in the three months since he …
Aug 12
Cancer has a nasty habit of taking things away from people–things like hair and strength and jobs and time. Sometimes it takes them away for a short while and sometimes it takes them away permanently. Even before my oncologist Dr. Marc Hirsh got an official cancer diagnosis, the disease already was robbing him of …
Aug 05
I remember thinking how ironic it was when I was diagnosed with cancer just six weeks after interviewing the local oncologist, Dr. Marc Hirsh, for my newspaper story about the hospital’s new cancer support group. And now in an even greater irony, that cancer specialist–my oncologist–has been diagnosed with the very disease that he spent …
Jul 22
I have a confession to make. It’s kind of embarrassing and I’m reticent to admit it, but I want to be transparent so I’m going public. I leak. Seriously, I do. And I’m not talking about once in a blue moon or even occasionally. I’m talking basically everyday, especially for the last several months. …
Jul 01
Tomorrow, July 2, is the 30th anniversary of my surgery for stage 3 colon cancer. So it seemed like a good time to reflect on important truths God has taught me in these past three decades. Whether you’re living in cancer’s shadow or some other life struggle, my prayer is that your heart will …
Jun 03
My cousin Jim knows from his years of soaring into hurricanes and typhoons that flying into a storm is extremely dangerous. But as part of a U.S. Air Force weather reconnaissance team, it was his job to help gather weather data so forecasters could better predict a storm’s strength. It was critical, Jim says, …
May 20
Any fears flooding your thoughts these days? Reading on-line obituaries to see who died from COVID-19? Scrolling Facebook to read the latest thing to worry about? After my cancer diagnosis in 1990, every night I’d look in the local paper to see if someone I had treatment with had died or how many people …
May 06
My prayer for you today, my friend, is that no matter what life hands you–when your world or even the whole world is crashing down–you will trust the Lord’s unending love for you. So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be …
Apr 22
When this novel coronavirus invaded our globe, it was such a stark reminder of my long-ago cancer diagnosis that I actually said to myself: Now everyone will see how it feels to have your world fall apart right before your eyes. For the past thirty years, my life has been divided into B.C. (Before Cancer) …
Mar 25
Don’t wait. Not a minute. Not a second. Instead, praise God now. If you and I wait to praise God until after something earthshaking and amazing happens, we’ve got the wrong order. Praise comes first. Doubt that? Consider the classic praise story in the Bible–this scenario (in Acts 16) where Paul and Silas, bound in chains in …
