28 September 2008
Sharon’s Sunday Blog
Posted by Joy Bischoff under: Guest Blogger .
Tony Snow was President Bush’s Press Secretary who died from cancer July 12, 2008 . Here are some excerpts from Tony’s testimony about his experience.
Blessings arrive in unexpected packages, – in my case, cancer. Those of us with potentially fatal diseases – and there are millions in America today – find ourselves in the odd position of coping with our mortality while trying to fathom God’s will. Although it would be the height of presumption to declare with confidence ‘What It All Means,’ Scripture provides powerful hints and consolations.
The first is that we shouldn’t spend too much time trying to answer the ‘why’ questions: Why me? Why must people suffer? Why can’t someone else get sick? We can’t answer such things, and the questions themselves often are designed more to express our anguish than to solicit an answer.
I don’t know why I have cancer, and I don’t much care. It is what it is, a plain and indisputable fact. Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly, great and stunning truths began to take shape. Our maladies define a central feature of our existence: We are fallen. We are imperfect. Our bodies give out.
But, despite this, – or because of it, – God offers the possibility of salvation and grace. We don’t know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between now and the moment we meet our Creator face-to-face.
Second, we need to get past the anxiety. You fear partings; you worry about the impact on family and friends. You fidget and get nowhere.
To regain footing, remember that we were born not into death, but into life – and that the journey continues after we have finished our days on this earth. We accept this on faith, but that faith is nourished by a conviction that stirs even within many non-believing hearts – an intuition that the gift of life, once given, cannot be taken away.
Those who have been stricken enjoy the special privilege of being able to fight with their might, main, and faith to live fully, richly, exuberantly – no matter how their days may be numbered….
Third, we can open our eyes and hearts. God relishes surprise. We want lives of simple, predictable ease, – smooth, even trails as far as the eye can see, – but God likes to go off- road. He provokes us with twists and turns. He places us in predicaments that seem to defy our endurance and comprehension – and yet don’t. By His love and grace, we persevere. The challenges that make our hearts leap and stomachs churn invariably strengthen our faith and grant measures of wisdom and joy we would not experience otherwise….
The moment you enter the ‘Valley of the Shadow of Death’, things change. You discover that Christianity is not something doughy, passive, pious, and soft. Faith may be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. But it also draws you into a world shorn of fearful caution. The life of belief teems with thrills, boldness, danger, shocks, reversals, triumphs, and epiphanies. …
Finally, we can let love change everything. When Jesus was faced with the prospect of crucifixion, he grieved not for himself, but for us. He cried for Jerusalem before entering the Holy City . From the Cross, he took on the cumulative burden of human sin and weakness, and begged for forgiveness on our behalf.
We get repeated chances to learn that life is not about us, that we acquired purpose and satisfaction by sharing in God’s love for others…..
It is hard to describe, but there are times when suddenly the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and you feel a surge of the Spirit. Somehow you just know: Others have chosen, when talking to the Author of all creation, to lift us up, – to speak to Him of us!
This is love of a very special order. But so is the ability to sit back and appreciate the wonder of every created thing. The mere thought of death somehow makes every blessing vivid, every happiness more luminous and intense. We may not know how our contest with sickness will end, but we have felt the loving touch of God.
‘What is man that Thou are mindful of him?’ We don’t know much, but we do know this: No matter where we are, no matter what we do, no matter how bleak or frightening our prospects, each and every one of us who believes lies, each and every day, in the same safe and impregnable place: The hollow of God’s hand! ‘
Robert Anthony Snow [June 1, 1955 – July 12, 2008]
http://www.theabsurdreport.com/2008/the-final-words-from-tony-snow/
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