Cuck Fancer

I was talking with a friend yesterday who was telling me about a little cancer scare he'd had last week. It reminded me of my own back in June when I, too, had a little cancer scare. A pap smear came back a little funky, so I had to have a biopsy and then had to have all of the little pre-cancerous cells removed. Fun, I tell you. Fortunately, it was nothing but a scare, but it provided a few good days of "getting things into perspective" and looking back, I'm glad I wrote down what was going on in my mind during the little freak out of 2010.

About that time I was finishing up reading "A Million Miles In a Thousand Years" by Donald Miller (pass go, pick up your $200 and head to the book store ASAP for this one). If you've read it you'll see the common thread here in the mumblings I wrote down at that time (the stuff in italics are today's notes about my thoughts then):

Things I Thought When I Thought I Might Have Cancer – 6/28/2010

· * I so terribly want my friends and family to see how God is rocking my world.

· * I want to go out in blaze of fucking glory.

· * When I learn the terrible, awful, horrible news, planning of boating/writing trip commences in earnest. (I really want to take a sailing trip where i do nothing but right and soak up the rays and time on the water)

· * I AM GOING to live.

· * I ran 4 miles. SUCK IT to everyone who made me think I couldn’t accomplish anything. (I've since ran 10, who's the underachiever now?).

· * No greater love exists than that of the father, none. Not on this earth anyway. After my biopsy I flipped out for a second thinking about potentially being alone when a cancer diagnosis came. I thought about the potential knights in shining armor who may come along to save the day, and quickly realized that I didn’t need one. I have one, and he and I shall, have one hell of a dance party in heaven.

· * I want dancing at my funeral. I want a video of me and “Jesus” dancing to Chris Brown's "Forever" Amy W. can choreograph it, need a videographer, and dancers to get people up and dancing, during funeral. Jordana’s Johannes’ will be Jesus. (I can’t tell you how much fun I had in my head planning this whole thing out!)

· * Being a doormat, is really and truly an amazing thing. Being used by God, even in death, has unbelievable liberty that words fail me to explain. I’ve never felt freer.

· * Suddenly, marriage and children don’t seem that relevant, however, I REALLY want a companion to go down this road with.

· * This is going to make for one HELL of a story and I’m super psyched about it

· * Perhaps the only way to secure an audience for this book is to die. Fine by me.

· * I’m going to live and write as much as possible between now and then.

· * I just want people to love one another. Bottom line. Treat each other with respect and look up.

· * I want to write a good story with your help.

· * TAKE SOMEONE WITH YOU! (This is from Donald Miller’s book “A Million Miles In A Thousand Years” . . . seriously can’t recommend this one highly enough.)

· * It’s all about relationship with one another. How you love on those around you. Forget your selfish motivations. Check yourself at the door, every time you walk in. LIFE IS NOT ABOUT YOU!!! It’s about how you’re being used in the creation of God’s will. It might not sound like fun, but holy cow, if you only knew how fun and liberating this realization is. When you take yourself out of the equation, everything makes sense. LOOK up, for God’s sake.

· * I want my life to be a great story. Up until now, mine has been completely ho hum and boring. Because of conflict, I have changed, and can now see that it’s about the risk of going out on that limb with whatever it is that God is leading you to do. You don’t have to say, “yes lord, use me as a martyr”. All you have to do is say “whatever God, show me the first step". HE WILL NOT TAKE YOU WHERE HIS GRACE WON’T PROTECT YOU. He’s not that guy.

· * Repeat after me, “it’s not about me, it’s not about me, it’s not about me”. Try that attitude for a while and see what happens. I swear, your perspective on many, many things will change.

· * Use Me, Change Me, Heal Me

· * On food . . . eat it. Eat whatever you want, seriously, don’t hold back. You only live once. You should have more bacon grease in your diet.

· * I want to buy gifts for everyone. Lots and lots of gifts.

What's crazy is that when I wrote this I was on cloud freakin' 9. Looking back it still charges me up! Sorry if this is erratic or hard to read. It was really just my ramblings during a slightly disconcerting time. Suffice it to say though that the dichotomy of experiencing the fear of a cancer scare and intense joy at being in God's will all at the same time was really cool!

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