Make me an instrument, make me a song of praise
Make me a shining light that radiates Your ways
Make me Your masterpiece, Lord put me on display
That I may ever be a picture of Your grace.
“All About Your Glory” (Tommy Walker, 2006)
https://youtu.be/eBz-d-QHksI?si=bTps6LokOr1a7dw_
October 20, 2025.
I’m sitting in the waiting room at the CT Imaging/X-Ray Outpatient Center in the Mays Building at MD Anderson. I’ve drunk my 30 oz of iodine infused Crystal Light and I’m ready to receive my dye contrast CT scan. My IV has been inserted. I’m scanning for the restroom.
I’m surrounded by people like me.
Well, sort of like me. I’m reminded of the mystery and disparity. Some are in such fragile health, pale and weak, being wheeled around in wheelchairs; others look the picture of health, but their IV ports and masks belie the truth: something is wrong or has gone wrong and a reckoning must occur. Over the past 5 years, I’ve probably had at least 10 or more of these scans, PET scans, and other observational instruments to check the presence of tumors. Honestly, I’ve lost count. The cost has been time away from home, dollars in the hundreds of thousands, and I guiltily consider myself fortunate because I know others who have paid so much more both in the body and pocketbook and seem to get little traction. I recall the wise words of a friend: “Don’t feel guilty; feel blessed.”
Every cancer survivor must make a decisive philosophical decision about their journey. They can insist that they’ve done nothing wrong and that the Universe is unfair. They can neutrally admit that sometimes bad things happen at no fault to themselves or their families and they must troop on. Or they can place themselves in the care of their loving Creator and say: “This I receive from you knowing you can do no evil nor make mistake. You, O Lord, are loving and from everlasting to everlasting, you are God Almighty full of lovingkindness and mercy.”
Thus, what else can I do but continue to say – and have actually sung – but the chorus above? I only have one life to live, one witness to give. Why not completely empty it to his wise and loving purposes?
This may not fit your theology, but it fits mine. I believe that the Lord wanted to “borrow” my body to leverage his maximum glory in my life. The allowance of the disease to proceed was for my benefit – and I pray for the benefit of others. I want to borrow your body, Sean – the body I created – to bring maximum glory to myself. Will you let me? “You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.” (Jn 13:7) More than likely, events and situations both in my control and not of my control allowed for the cancer cells to mask itself from my body’s immune system and to grow over many years. I can’t decide which is the greater miracle: that it was caught in-time, that I had access to the marvelous advances of medicine and my oncologist’s wisdom, that I had such generous support from my family and Forever Family, that infirmity revealed other character “cancers” for which repentance was the “chemo therapy”, or that I was humbly counted worthy of His tender trust to bear this burden for him?
Yes to all?
Disciple: we don’t have a choice in most things in our lives. We think we do, but it seems to me that that is an illusion. It seems to me that we are far too exposed to forces and wills we have no influence over. Our Father intervenes all the time. But we do reserve one powerful and decisive option: the choice of our attitude and the vector of our gratitude. Only YOU can give the direction of your will and intention – and this in loving trust to and for Him. You may not like this, but God demands it of us – he has to because otherwise I fear we’d never make the right choice.
I appreciate Dallas Willard’s statement: “Those who are not genuinely convinced that the only real bargain in life is surrendering ourselves to Jesus and his cause, abandoning all that we love to him and for him, cannot learn the other lessons Jesus has to teach us. Not that he will not let us, but that we simply cannot succeed. If I tell you that you cannot drive an automobile unless you can see, I am not saying I will not let you, but that you cannot succeed even if I do.” (Willard, Renovation. 66)
That may strike you as unwanted or even unAmerican or unbiblical. I think I understand. But the wonderful lesson that I’m grateful to God for in my cancer journey is that I understand that better now. I don’t understand it exhaustively – just a bit more. And that is enough.
Tomorrow, I find out what the scan says.
Then I’ve got some praying to do. I imagine so do you.
[Next Day]
October 21, 2025. From my follow-up notes on my MyChart:
10/20/2025: CT CAP: no new progressive lymphadenopathy; Mr. Lee remains in complete response from his DLBCL 5 years after R-CHOP chemotherapy. We will discharge him to the care of his PCP for preventive health maintenance.
My journey began on February 28, 2020, but for now, I’m still trying to figure out what I am as a cancer survivor. I’m sure the Lord Jesus will help me figure that out!
If you’ve prayed for me, cried with me, worried about me, been at peace with me … rejoice with me: God our Father is faithful!
And with David, I say:
1 I will extol the LORD at all times;
his praise will always be on my lips.
2 My soul will boast in the LORD;
let the afflicted hear and rejoice.
3 Glorify the LORD with me;
let us exalt his name together.
4 I sought the LORD, and he answered me;
he delivered me from all my fears.
5 Those who look to him are radiant;
their faces are never covered with shame.
6 This poor man called, and the LORD heard him;
he saved him out of all his troubles.
7 The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him,
and he delivers them.
8 Taste and see that the LORD is good;
blessed is the man who takes refuge in him.
9 Fear the LORD, you his saints,
for those who fear him lack nothing.
10 The lions may grow weak and hungry,
but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing. Psalms 34:1-10
[See where it began: https://www.roswellgrace.com/mr-lee-you-have-lymphoma/]