Submitted by Dr. Robert F. Lane on
A DISEASE AND AN ILLNESS
Cancer is both a disease and an illness. One affects your organs and the other your life At first, you cannot detect either one until something vital stops working properly – either you hurt or your life hurts. The disease comes from injured genes, toxins or a virus while the illness comes from something I call the Dragon. The doctors battle the disease but it is up to you to deal with the illness and the Dragon.
God has given us a life and given us the right to dispose of it as we choose. Cancer does not lessen the number of choices but it increases the urgency to get them right. It will be your character choices that will determine your destiny and your legacy - and how happy you are. No cancer can steal your character from you and no friend or doctor can give it to you. You don’t need to be talented or wealthy, smart or strong but you do need a good model and mentor. Who will be yours be?
Both the disease and the illness, play out phase by phase over months and years. How does one grapple with two such foreign problems? The framework of running race on an oval track and its bell lap helps us think sequentially about the phases of cancer-life and the strategies for living them. A bell sounds announcing the beginning of what might be the final lap. Breathing hard down the first stretch of that lap the cancer-scared runner reaches the near corner, endures that then rounds strongly into the backstretch. That leads doggedly into the far corner which breaks breathlessly onto the home stretch ending graciously at the finish line.
The Dragon always appears on this lap and spews the very same life-altering, death-fearing illness into everyone’s life eventually; if it is not already there. Cancer unmasks that serpent bringing it out in the open where we can see and experience the insidious drama of its actions. Everyone else can recognize those who battle it victoriously and those who don’t.
THE BELL LAP AND THE DRAGON BEHIND THE DOOR
The first book addresses the planning and preparation necessary in the first stretch after hearing the Bell. Then it introduces the Dragon and the various tools and tricks it employs to trip us up in the near corner as we are trying to collect ourselves for the treatment and a different life ahead. Those surviving that corner enter a backstretch of opportunity for spiritual reflection, discovery and growth followed by optimization of relationships and preparation to pass the batons of their life to the next generation in the far corner. The homestretch is for celebration and anticipation not fear and dread.
Now : WHERE DOES GOD FIT IN?
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