Last Sunday I preached a sermon that asked the question, Have you been healed or have you been saved? The answer of course is that we, hopefully, have been healed and saved. But the point is this:
Being healed is fabulous. It absolutely rocks. But being saved? That’s everything. You see, to me, being healed is an event in our life, while being saved is a way of life.
Don’t get me wrong, I pray that everyone here who is or loves someone who is, affected by cancer will know healing. But healing comes in many different forms---for some of us it’s remission for others it’s cure, for others, it’s getting through the next round of treatment with our dignity and our humor intact. But for ALL of us, healing means little if we aren’t saved. Now, before you all think I’ve gone all fundamentalist on you, hear me out.
I was diagnosed with breast cancer October 4, 2010. I’d recently started a new job at a new church, I’d moved into a new home, I was looking forward!
Getting cancer wasn’t in my plans. Getting cancer isn’t ever in anyone’s plans. But we get it. A lot of us get it. One in three women and one in two men will get a dx of cancer in their lifetime. One in eight women will get a diagnosis of breast cancer. My mother, my sister, my first cousin and my aunt are all breast cancer survivors. I am a breast cancer survivor. My father died of lung cancer over 20 years ago. As did my aunt. My grandmother died of brain cancer. There’s a lot of cancer in our family.
I despise cancer.
Yet, cancer saved my life.
I have been healed from my cancer, and I am grateful, every single day of my life for the doctors, nurses, researchers and other staff at Roswell Park Cancer Institute for this health. They, through the grace of God, worked toward my cure and my health. I am grateful for my healing.
But I am more grateful for being saved.
Yes, cancersaved my life.
Cancer made me change everything. I realized that I needed to be surrounded by life giving, as opposed to life sucking people. I learned who my true friends were--- the people who sat with me in the waiting room at the breast clinic—the same people who still sit with me when I go in every six months for exams; the people who took my calls as I obsessed and cried, ranted and raved; who quietly listened as I lamented and grieved the loss of friends I met in those waiting rooms, friends whose disease wouldn’t cease, friends who fought the good fight, friends I’ve lost to this disease; life-giving people who hold my hand when I hear that yet another friend has had a recurrence.
Cancer saved my life because it helped me realize
that I was a whole lot stronger than I ever thought I could be.
That I was braver than I thought.
That I realized while I wasn’t afraid of dying, I was a much bigger fan of living.
I realized that life can and does change on a dime so I better live every day as fully and as joyfully as I can.
I realized that my heart had room, that my heart needed, the love of a spouse, a lifelong partner who would take this journey, wherever it takes me, with me.
Having cancer made me realize—deep down in my soul how incredibly awesome God really is. Oh I knew it up here, but this taught me it in here.
Cancer saved my life.
Cancer gave me the courage to live my life I think God intended me to live my life.
Cancer gave me the faith to trust God. And to live into that trust.
Cancer showed me the truth: that nothing afflicts me alone. That God is always with me, through the love of family and friends, through the support of neighbors and co-workers, through the still quiet voice I heard when I lay on that exam table the day the lump was found, the voice that whispered, “you have cancer. And it will be ok.” Hear me clearly,
That voice didn’t promise that I would live a long life, dying at age 103 as has been my plan, the voice simply said “it will be ok.”
That’s the difference between being healed and being saved.
Healing is what happens to us at a particular time and regarding a particular ailment.. Salvation—being saved-- is what happens when we realize that our life isn’t defined by how long it is or whether we eventually lose our battle against disease, or whether we are lucky enough to live a life without disease, without hardship, without sorrow. Our life is defined by what we do with the life we’ve been given.
Cancer saved my life because I learned that cancer will only kill me when I am dead. In the meantime, I have a whole lot of living to do. My friend Mickey, whom I met through this service last year, gave me this little tidbit earlier this week: we all must LIVE until we die.
Our call is to Live.
Our call is to survive
Our call is to fight.
Our call is to live as best we can, as fully as we can, as honestly as we can and as joyfully as we can, until we are no longer alive.
Until we die.
Sadly for many of us death will come much sooner than we thought. But death doesn’t defines us, life does.
How we live, who we love, and what we do with all the gifts given to us, that defines us.
Everyone is healed, in one way or another. And everyone, everyone can be saved. So my hope for all of us here tonight, as we remember those we’ve lost, as we pray mightily for those still in the fight, as we offer thanksgivings for recovery, is that we all will live our lives fully and exuberantly and wonderfully up until the moment we take our final breath. Whenever that may be.
I wish you health, I wish you salvation, I wish you LIFE.
Amen.
[1] Sister Thea Bowman “Let me live until I die”
accessed via an email from mnbdick@roadrunner.com
on 10.15.13
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