The Talent of Cancer

I can't believe it's been since April since I've posted!  Time has flown with the end of the school year, the start of summer, and all other details that life entails.

God gives us all talents, gifts, abilities.  I have a friend whose at a training conference right now.  At the end of her day, they asked her to write 10 qualities of her greatness.  What a challenge.  Do we spend enough time reflecting on what makes us great?  If we know what our qualifiers are, can we then serve God that much greater knowing what he has given us?

A few weeks ago, I was thinking of the parable of the talents.

“For it will be as when a man going on a journey called his servants and entrusted to them his property; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them; and he made five talents more. So also, he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money. Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here I have made five talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master.’ And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here I have made two talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a little, I will set you over much; enter into the joy of your master.’ He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you did not winnow; so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here you have what is yours.’ But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sowed, and gather where I have not winnowed? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to every one who has will more be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who has not, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness; there men will weep and gnash their teeth.’” - Matthew 25: 14-30

Cancer became a part of my life, in a sense, a talent.  It was up to me to decide what to do with it.  Do I bury it, become afraid and bitter?  Do I use it?  How do I use it? 

I know a lot of you who will read this are dealing with so much in your lives, yucky marriages, GBS, Crohn’s disease, miscarriage, infertility, stillbirth, Lupus, loss of a family member, depression, waiting for a spouse, financial issues, family issues, difficult or unplanned pregnancies.  These are just a few things that I know some of y’all are going through.  

How do we turn these into talents?  How can we bless them, multiply them, and make five talents more?  We can use anything that comes our way for God’s glory.

I became aware of, and consequently fell in love with the virtue of universal mortification/redemptive suffering freshman year of college.  When we can answer the question why is there suffering in this world, and what we do with it, life takes on a new dimension.  It gives us an opportunity to attach meaning to it - it makes life worth living.  When I discovered the virtue, it became a crux of my spiritual life - offering up my piddly sufferings for the sake of my salvation, my family’s salvation and the world’s.  Since February, the severe pain that I was in, and the uncomfortable side effects of chemo, I’ve had an opportunity to offer up my suffering for you.  

I was browsing though my alumni magazine and saw that Jeff Cavins had written a new book: When You Suffer.  It does a beautiful job explaining suffering and what we can do with it. I want to say more about the book, but Jeff does such a better job, so here’s a link to his book and a great video of him talking about it. It’s been a comfort and an eye-opener.

As for an update on what’s physically going on: Round 5 I had an allergic reaction to oxaliplatin - that’s the one that’s pretty toxic.  Most people have a reaction around round 8, but Christmas came early for me.  It was solved with lots of benadryl and hydrocortisone.  Luckily, I didn’t need epinephrine.  As a result of that reaction, I will no longer receive oxaliplatin.  The 5-FU is far and away the more important drug.  The new protocol is that I still go in every other Tuesday, get my pre-drugs: 2 nausea blockers and an immune boosting steroid, then I get hooked up to the 5-FU and carry around my handy dandy chemo in a fanny pack for 2 days.  David disconnects at home 46 hours after the start of infusion, and then I’m free again!  These days the nausea is pretty much under control and my biggest complaints are some minor hair thinning, chemo taste, fatigue, and side effects from the steroid.  I still have neuropathy from the oxali, too, but that will go away eventually.  Not too bad, all things considered.

I’ll end this post by going back to the first paragraph: what are 10 qualifiers that make you great?  Let me add cancer to my own list, for if I use it for God’s glory, it is great indeed.