Perspective

Most cancer patients don't really like what they have to go through in the battle against cancer. The chemicals, the side effects, the radiation, the constant checking of vitals, the continuous flow of doctors and nurses, the endless drain of money for the medical and the questions. Questions can be mind numbing and never ending. Questions from within: will I survive? is this enough? why me? do I have to be this sick? is this pain another cancer? Questions from without (from family & friends); what's next? how are you feeling? what is the doctor saying? will you survive? All good questions and sometimes there are actually answers. But more often than not the questions just lead to more questions. Don't stop being concerned and don't stop asking the questions. Just don't be surprised at the answer.
But having cancer can give an interesting perspective. When you come up against something that has a good chance of taking your life it affects your outlook. Most cancer patients have had to take a good hard look at death and some of the deeper questions. What's next? Am I ready to die? What will it look like when I do die? Will I be missed and/or will it matter that I'm gone? Those things that I have firmly believed to be true, are they? Questions that we tend to ignore until we are faced with the fatal. We probably shouldn't ignore these questions because none of us knows when our number will be called. But our tendency is to ignore the deeper questions.
Taking the time to deal with the deeper questions tends to give us a better (or at least different) perspective. Things that seem to matter in the everyday (someone cutting us off in traffic, someone stealing 'my' parking place, someone cutting in line, someone growling at us, - the list is almost unending) don't really matter in light of the eternal. Oh that we could hold onto that perspective everyday.

God is good all the time!!
jim

Col 3:2 Don't shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ — that's where the action is. See things from his perspective. (from THE MESSAGE: The Bible in Contemporary Language)