Letters from the Land of Cancer Book

My favorite parts of this book ~

Virginia, my elegant mother, lays her cheek against mine and sings:

I am Jesus' little lamb,
Ever glad at heart I am.
For my Shepherd gently guides me,
Knows my need and well provides me,
Loves me every day the same,
Even calls me by my name.
Day by day, at home, away,
Jesus is my Staff and Stay.
When I hunger, Jesus feeds me,
Into pleasant pastures leads me;
When I thirst, He bids me go
Where the quiet waters flow.
Who so happy as I am,
Even now the Shepherd's lamb?
And when my short life is ended,
By His angel host attended,
He shall fold me to His breast,
There within His arms to rest.

(Henriette L. von Hayn)

This is the closest I come to a word regarding my healing: a declaration that in the end it will surely come. But I am consoled, my dear wife, by your persistent praying.
Why can't I bring myself to pray for my own healing? Well, it seems a bit presumptuous.
Not that I don't believe in the prayer's effect. I've prayed the same prayer for others, with neither hesitation nor skepticism .........
Well, perhaps this is a genuine explanation: I don't fear death. I am peaceful in my present state. I feel no urgency for change. Why pray for one particular outcome when whatever God chooses for me is altogether fine by me? ........

Look: Shadrach, Meshach and Abedego, just before Nebuchadezzar threw them into the fiery furnace, made a statement of faith so magnificent that I don't think there was another such until Jesus himself lived out the same faith.
Nebuchadnezzar in furious rage commanded that they be brought in.
"Now, if you are ready to fall down and worship the statue that I have made, well and good. But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire, and who is the god that will deliver you out of my hands?"
They said, "We have no need to present a defense to you. If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, let him deliver us. But if not, be it known to you that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the golden statue that you have set up."

Even if God gives them no sign at all, yet they will obey him!
Whichever the case, the three young men will not break their faith. Whether they live or whether they die, it is all one with them.
Even if my God should take no extraordinary measures regarding my life, I am neverthe less at peace.
They didn't pray. Simply, they stuck to the Lord God. He would do as he pleased. God was God however he chose to act.

Likewise Jesus: even hanging on the cross, dying, suffering what seemed the abandonment of his Father, yet he obeyed -even unto death.

Why, resting my soul upon the everlasting bosom of my Lord, should I be any different?

Christ is altogether more trustworthy than the leaders of this earth are proving themselves to be. Grief and fear and a pandemic of self-serving behaviors trouble the peoples; leaders increase the fear, distort the behaviors, invert righteousness, and their destructions abound. These things are true. They have been true since we hid from God - even if they do seem more extreme in these latter years.

And here, Linda, comes the real source of my peace on the threshold of death.
Watch in this chapter for the relationship between the Holy Shepherd and his flock: (John 10)

The sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers. I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father. And I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand. What my Father has given me is greater than all else, and no one can snatch it out of the Father's hand. The Father and I are one.

And this, finally, is the merciful consequence of the Savior's calling our names. Eternal life!

Linda, how did Jesus raise Lazarus, whom he dearly loved, from the dead? He called the dead man by his name! Lazarus!

And how did he revive Mary Magdalene, grieving the death of her whole existence? Mary!

So it shall be with me.
The shepherd will come - he who leads me out by my name and by the resounding gift of his voice.
And he will say to my dead self: Walter!

And I will be again.

The creating word itself will give me ears to his voice. And a mind of soaring mystery to know it. And I like Lazarus will rise.

I, like Mary Magdalene, will emerge from the death of hopelessness and anguished tears and distress.

"Walter," Jesus will say, and in that instant my soul will know Jesus, that it is he. And in the light of his familiar voice - in the sweet re-declaration of my name - I will even know me, who I am, and therefore that I am!

Resurrected, do you see?

Right now, therefore, I am to hold lightly both death and life - and the life which shall be.