A Push to the Finish Line

Just got plugged in for day one of round 5. Outside of a little up and down fatigue and a pesky cold this weekend, this past round was the smoothest yet. Even better, my mid-cycle scans came back looking great so far. We'll have to wait until mid-February for final PET scans to do the victory dance, but we can see the finish line. Oh, and our friends in Colorado just ran an even tougher cancer race and just received the well-earned medal of remission. God is good. Given the favorable momentum, it's really tempting to just skip ahead with an all-out sprint assuming we know the ending to this chapter. Obviously we're pleased with the progress and current prognosis, but we would be taking a big step backward on our journey if we thought we have any real control over the next 6 weeks. Shoot, we don't even know what tomorrow will bring let alone trying to peek around the corner. One of my mentors once told me that he sees God show up much more when we come to grips with not knowing what's next and surrendering to His script rather than our own. Conversely, if we think we've got it all figured out, He often chooses not to step in. That's not to say there is a formula to the future, but we have learned to be meaningfully more comfortable in the uncomfortable white space of the unknown. Or even more so if we think we know what we don't know. God isn't confined to a box or a diagnosis. Yet I find myself restless at the moment since we're so close to the end of treatment. Maybe I'm getting a little stir crazy after spending so much time quarantined to my room, or maybe the sleepless nights have just piled up over the weeks. Courtney's restlessness is a bit different since the weight of the holidays is building without much help from me, and she's naturally concerned that I'll just snap right back into my previous fast-paced habits once we cross the finish line. But thankfully this season has not only given us greater awareness about the crazy speed of life, but we've been able to acquire new muscles and build our conditioning to help us run the race with excellence. In Romans 5, Paul calls this endurance - which interestingly begins with difficult times. "We rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope." Endurance has nothing to do with sprinting, and real fruit blossoms when we embrace and actually celebrate suffering. Sounds backward and counter-cultural, but we're pretty convinced that we are now stronger because of this experience. And our hope has never been more tangible and relevant. In Good Will Hunting, Robin Williams tells Matt Damon that we'll all have bad times, "but they always wake you up to the good stuff that you weren't paying attention to." What a perfect time during the holiday for all of us to slow down and wrestle with our restlessness, no matter what shape or size or how long the length of the current season. As we wrap up an eventful year along with the last few days of treatment, my prayer is that each of us will awake to God's poking and prodding. And if you ever see me running in the wrong direction or even worse falling asleep, please shake me and tell me to wake up and pay attention to the good stuff.