I’ve officially retired this blog in 2012. New blog coming soon in 2013! I’m active on Twitter at twitter.com/johnharris3. I hope readers found my fight and recovery from cancer beneficial and maybe your spiritual walk has also been strengthened.
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Don’t let the sun go down on your anger
Any difficult time in life brings on many emotions: sadness, fear, regret, panic. And anger.
I’ve written a lot on how to overcome tough times on this blog but haven’t really touched much on anger. This emotion can really sneak up on you.
Gary Chapman made a good point in his book on anger that even God gets angry (anger can be a valid response if you have been wronged). BUT – the response after your anger makes all the difference.
The Bible says in your anger, do not sin. That’s the key. We cannot let our anger drive our actions. We need to have a cooling off period and other techniques so that our behavior does not take a wrong turn.
Easier said than done!
We need to start now by praying, reading the Bible and other ways to get us in the right frame of mind so we aren’t surprised by the anger. Preparation now makes all the difference! Take great care that when you do get angry, pay attention to how you are responding.
How Cancer Changed the Way I Pray
When I was diagnosed with cancer in 2009, it completely changed my life up to this very day. It changed me physically (not for the better) and it changed me spiritually (for the better).
But only in the last two weeks has it made a very big change in my prayer life. How?
In the last three years, I’ve always prayed that God would heal me of my cancer. Every time I had a CT scan, I would pray that God would heal me as I went through the scanner. I don’t pray that anymore.
Now, I pray that God’s will be done in my life. That’s not to say I don’t want to live, but I would rather do God’s will. To me, the most fulfilling life is one lived exactly how God wants it — whether that is a shorter life than we would want (or longer).
It took me exactly three years to get to the point where I pray that God’s will would be done and not to pray to continue to live. Three years. Spiritual maturity takes time. We often don’t want to wait long, but sometimes we must.
Was it worth the pain to get there? Not sure I would want to say that, although it’s probably true! God can use even the worst part of your life to bring you to maturity.
Has God ever used a bad situation in your life to help you grow?
If you like this post, you’ll like my book, available on Amazon. Thanks for reading!
What ever happened to Christian Tracts?
I remember years ago picking up Christian tracts in all sorts of place — restaurants, ATMs (and plenty of bars, unfortunately). I don’t think I’ve seen any in a long time.
It seems like whenever I saw one, I wanted to pick it up and check it out. I remember I put a few in my pocket and took them home. They always intrigued me.
The ones I remember most were probably these. (At least one site I found was critical of Chick’s attacks on the Roman Catholic church.)
I was never in to the ones using scare tactics and most of them seemed silly (see last image). But for some reason, I always wanted to read them.
Do you remember ones like these?
5 Things I Learned About Life After Facing Death
One day at work, I got this weird, uncomfortable feeling in my lower back. It ramped up so fast I went into the bathroom so no one would see me grimace. Something was not right.
I immediately left, got in my car, and started heading home. But only a few minutes later, I didn’t think I was going to make it home. The pain was so bad I nearly stopped on the side of the road.
Somehow, I made it to my brother’s house only about two miles away. The pain was in full force now, and I paced back and forth in his room. What was going on? In the snap of your fingers, the pain was gone.
I had no idea what was happening, but I had finished chemotherapy only eight months ago and had started taking another drug to keep the cancer at bay so I wasn’t exactly surprised at any health issues big or small.
Later that night, out of the blue, the pain ramped up so bad it brought me to my knees. It was so bad I threw up. I had to go to the ER. Just before they were going to give me pain killer through an IV, the pain suddenly stopped.
While there, they gave me a CT scan. The first thing they said when they reviewed the results was that I had kidney stones. And an enlarged lymph node. That was not good.
Sure enough, a surgical biopsy revealed that the cancer was back. Even after six rounds of chemotherapy that put me in complete remission, the cancer was back. I was certain that I was going to die.
