To Life- For Whatever It Deals Out
A few things seem ironic today. First was the note last week on my father's birthday when I talked about how life is short. No matter how long, it is still short. There's never enough time.

Then the quote yesterday from Fredrick Buechner about grace, which I give thanks for. It is the comings and goings of life that can make all the difference. Even when those comings and goings don't go the way we hope they do.

It is important then to do what you need to do to celebrate life in all its fullness, in spite of its uncertainties. This at least is my additions to the thoughts today.

This is all brought on by news I got yesterday from one of my best friends and his wife, also one of those best friends. A few of us were sitting around after the turkey and stuffing ourselves and wondered how this friend was doing. She had been in the hospital and has been undergoing treatment for cancer. The last we heard she was doing well with a kind of cancer that is curable in 3 out of 4 cases. So we called and were brought up short with those uncertainties and roller coasters and just plain bad news that you are never prepared to hear.

Without going into the details, the news was that at this point it looks like this may have been that one in four situations where the cancer mutates and becomes resistant to the chemotherapy. They are now about to start a very aggressive treatment without which it is only a matter of months. With it? Will it work? No one knows.

Pray for strength to get through the next three weeks- and then pray that it works.

That's what it is all about. Life on life's terms. Period. Trust in God for the strength to live in the midst of His will. Whatever it is. However it may be lived out.

It is not a sign of lack of faith to be sad and scared and angry and numb at such news. It is not a sign of lack of faith to shake your hand at heaven and whisper, or scream, or simply think along with Job through gritted teeth:

The Lord gives,
the Lord takes away,
Blessed be the name of the Lord.

It is not a sign of lack of faith to ask, "Why? Why her? Why at her age? Why?"

But it sure does blow holes in all those gospels of "success" and all those Santa-in-heaven approaches to God.

And brings us face to face with the ultimate questions that have nothing to do with how much money you have, how well you dress, whether you are man or woman, gay or straight, young or old, Protestant or Catholic or atheist.

What is the meaning of life if it always ends in death?

Talk about powerlessness and unmanageability. Talk about needing to come to trust in a Higher Power. Talk about having to get down on one's knees and turn all that we are and all that we can ever be over to that God. I once heard a speaker at a Christian spirituality conference talk about her work with Hospice patients. She summed it up when she said:

The last stage of dying is acceptance.
When you reach that you have reached the First Step of AA.

It sure gave a whole new twist to the rest of Thanksgiving Day yesterday. May God's grace always lead us on.