TONY SNOW'S TESTIMONY
 
This is an outstanding testimony from Tony Snow,
President Bush's Press Secretary, and his fight with cancer.
Commentator and broadaster Tony Snow
announced that he had colon cancer in 2005.
Following surgery and chemo-thrapy,
Snow joined the Bush Administration in April, 2006, as press secretary.

Unfortunately, on March 23, 2007, Snow, 51, a husband and father of three, announced that the cancer had recurred, with tumors found in his abdomen, leading to surgery in April, followed by more chemotherapy.

 Snow went back to work in the White House Briefing Room on May 3, but has resigned since, 'for economic reasons,' and to pursue 'other interests.'  It needs little intro . . . it speaks for itself. Snow lost the fight on July 12, 2008.
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'Blessings arrive in unexpected packages, - in my case, cancer.&nbs p;
Those of us with potentially fatal diseases - and there are millions in America today - find ourselves in the odd position of coping with our mortality while trying to fathom God's will.
Although it would be the height of presumption to declare with confidence 'What It All Means,'

Scripture provides powerful hints and consolations. The first is that we shouldn't spend too much time trying to answer the 'why' questions:
Why me?
Why must people suffer?
Why can't someone else get sick?
We can't answer such things, and the questions themselves
often are designed more to express our anguish than to solicit an answer.
 
I don't know why I have cancer, and I don't much care. It is what it is, a plain and indisputable fact. Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly, great and stunning truths began to take shape.
Our maladies define a central feature of our existence:
We are fallen.
We are imperfect.
Our bodies give out.
 
But, despite this, - or because of it, -God offers the possibility of salvation and grace. We don't know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval
between now and the moment we meet our Creator face-to-face.

Second, we need to get past the anxiety. The mere thought of dying can send adrenaline flooding through your system. A dizzy, unfocused panic seizes you. Your heart thumps; your head swims. You think of nothingness and swoon. You fear partings;
you worry about the impact on family and friends. You fidget and get nowhere.

To regain footing, remember that we were born not into death,
but into life - and that the journey continues after we have finished our days on this earth. We accept this on fa ith, but that faith is nourished by a conviction that stirs even within many non-believing hearts - an institution that the gift of life, once given, cannot be taken away. Those who have been stricken enjoy the special privilege of being able to fight with their might, main, and faith to live fully, richly, exuberantly - no matter how their days may be numbered.
 
Third, we can open our eyes and hearts. God relishes surprise.
We want lives of simple, predictable ease, - smooth, even trails as far as the eye can see, - but God likes to go off-road. He provokes us with twists and turns. He places us in predicaments that seem to defy our endurance and comprehension - and yet don't.  By His love and grace, we persevere. The challenges that make our hearts leap and stomachs churn invariably strengthen our faith and grant pleasures of wisdom and joy we w ould not experience otherwise.
 
'You Have Been Called'.
Picture yourself in a hospital bed. The fog of anesthesia has begun to wear away. A doctor stands at your feet, a loved one holds your hand at the side.  'It's cancer,' the healer announces. The natural reaction is to turn to God and ask him to serve as a cosmic Santa.  'Dear God, make it all go away.
Make everything simpler.'  But another voice whispers: 'You have been called.'  Your quandary has drawn you closer to God,
closer to those you love, closer to the issues that matter, - and has dragged into insignificance the banal concerns that occupy our 'normal time.'

There's another kind of response, although usually short-lived,
an inexplicable shudder of excitement as if a clarifying moment of calamity has swept away everything trivial and tiny, and placed before us  ;the challenge of important questions.
 
The moment you enter the Valley of the Shadow of Death,  things change. You discover that Christianity is not something doughy, passive, pious, and soft.  Faith may be the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.  But it also draws you into a world shorn of fearful caution.  The life of belief teems with thrills, boldness, danger, shocks, reversals, triumphs, and epiphanies.
Think of Paul, traipsing through the known world and contemplating trips to what must have seemed the antipodes (Spain), shaking the dust from his sandals, worrying not about the morrow, but only about the moment.
 
There's nothing wilder than a life of humble virtue, - for it is through selflessness and service that God wrings from our bodies and spirits the most we ever could give, the most we ever could offer, and the most we ever could do.
 
Finally, we can let love change everything.  When Jesus was faced with the prospect of cruicifixion, he grieved not for himself, but for us.  He cried for Jerusalem before entering the Holy City.  From the Cross, he took on the cumulative burden of human sin and weakness, and begged for forgiveness on our behalf.
 
We get repeated chances to learn that life is not about us,
that we acquired purpose and satisfaction by sharing in God's love for others.  Sickness gets us part way there.  It reminds us of our limitations and dependence.  But it also gives us a chance to serve the healthy.
 
A minister friend of mine observes that people suffering grave afflictions often acquire the faith of two people, while loved ones accept the burden of two peoples' worries and fears.
 
'Learning How to Live'.
Most o f us have watched friends as they drifted toward God's arms, not with resignation, but with peace and hope.  In so doing, they have taught us not how to die, but how to live.
They have emulated Christ by transmitting the power and authority of life.
 
I sat by my best friend's bedside a few years ago as a wasting cancer took him away.  He kept at his table a worn Bible and a 1928 edition of the Book of Common Prayer.  A shattering grief disabled his family, many of his old friends, and at least one priest.  Here was an humble and very good guy, someone who apologized when he winced with pain because he thought it made his guest uncomfortable.  He restrained his equanimity and good humor literally until his last conscious moment.  'I'm going to try to beat [this cancer],' he told me several months before he died.  'But if I don't, I'll see you on the other side.'
H is gift was to remind everyone around him that even though God doesn't promise us tomorrow, he does promise us eternity
- filled with life and love we cannot comprehend, - and that one can, in the throes of sickness, point the rest of us toward timeless truths that will help us weather future storms.
 
Through such trials, God bids us to choose:
Do we believe, or do we not?
Will we be bold enough to love, daring enough to serve, humble enough to submit, and strong enough to acknowledge our limitations?
Can we surrender our concern in things that don't matter so that we might devote our remaining days to things that do?
 
When our faith flags, He throws reminders in our way.
Think of the prayer warriors in our midst.  They change things,
and those of us who have been on the receiving end of their petitions and intercessions know it.  It is hard to describe, but there are times when suddenly the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and you feel a surge of the Spirit.  Somehow you just know:
Others have chosen, when talking to the Author of all creation,
to lift us up, - to speak of us!  This is love of a very special order.  But so is the ability to sit back and appreciate the wonder of every created thing.  The mere thought of death somehow makes every blessing vivid, every happiness more luminious and intense.  We may not know how our contest with sickness will end, but we have felt the ineluctable touch of God. 

What is man that Thou are mindful of him?
We don't know much, but we know this:
No matter where we are, no matter what we do, no matter how bleak or frightening our prospects, each and every one of us who believe each and every day, lies in the same safe and impregnable place, in the hollow of God's hand.'
 
T. Snow

Today I am sharing something that I receive in my email weekly. Long time ago some one sent me a email with the address of the Survivor Movie. Which I would tell anyone to watch that is a survivor. It pertains to cancer but it also pertains to living a strong life as well. Its on the upper right of my space. I watch it daily as a reminder for how I want to live.

That link brought me to The Cancer Crusade which for some is of great help.

Rodger and Kathy Cawthon are both survivors and have so much to offer in Weekly Affirmations. Today was special for me. As it had to do with Long Term Survivorship. It home in a lot of ways but also re affirmed several things. Long term survivors are a enity of there own. So with that said. Just wanted to share.

My thanks go out to both Rodger and Kathy for the work they do in behalf or those with cancer.Food for Thought yes! Always Hope

Courage is the price that life exacts
for granting peace.
Amelia Earhart
US aviator (1897-1937)

When I received my cancer diagnosis, what I wanted more than anything in the world was to meet, talk to and hopefully get a hug from long-term cancer survivors.

One of my happiest moments during that awful time was the evening I met a woman who was a 7-year cancer survivor. She hugged me and told me I would be fine, and I believed her. Now, of course I knew in my head that all cancers are different and that, in all likelihood, she had had totally different treatments for her cancer than I had for mine, but the facts didn't matter to me right then.

What mattered was that another human being who had been through pretty much the same thing I was going through - and, more importantly, someone who knew the raw terror I was experiencing - was still standing, proof that I could come out on the other side of this. She was hugging me and infusing me with her strength and her courage and her humanity. She made me believe what all of my doctors' reassurances and the nurses' encouraging words had not been able to because she spoke to my heart.

But there was something she didn't tell me, something that every cancer survivor learns at some point, something I'm going to share with you now, and that is this: cancer changes our lives in many ways, and it changes our lives forever.

Most of the ways are good. Nearly every cancer survivor we've ever met agrees that the "cancer experience" has given them a richer, deeper appreciation for life and pushed them to live their lives with greater joy than they ever knew
before cancer.

On the flip side, we cancer survivors will forever be getting those "extra special" checkups on a regular basis. We will be nervous, often scared, occasionally terrified. Some of us have to go through these examinations every few months for years, some more often and some less frequently.

Many long-term survivors find that, the longer they are "out" from diagnosis, the more they run into a particular problem. The problem is this: the people who weren't around them "back then" and who have only known them with hair and rosy cheeks and bright eyes just don't get it. We have even heard from some long-term survivors that people have said to them, "You look so healthy. You must not have had a very bad kind of cancer" (Excuse me? There are good kinds?). In other cases, new and/or casual acquaintances have actually implied that a long-term survivor never really
had cancer at all!

We've heard from several long- term survivors who've encountered problems with employers and co- workers who think the survivor is using his medical history as an excuse to take a few days off when he is due for check-ups and follow-up tests.

When a work-related situation arises, it is absolutely necessary to take action in order to avoid discriminatory treatment. Ask your oncologist to speak with your employer if it seems to be a simple misunderstanding. In more serious cases, it may be necessary to contact someone who can act as an advocate on your behalf. Many oncology practices and hospitals have such patient advocates on staff; if they don't, they can put you in touch with advocates in your community. In the most serious cases where real workplace discrimination is taking place, it becomes necessary to contact an attorney.

For the most part, however, the simple answer to these concerns is that it is up to us to educate the public. It is up to us as survivors to teach people who might otherwise never know it that there are more than 10 million cancer survivors in this country and we walk among them every day. Our hair has grown back and our cheeks glow and our eyes sparkle. We go to work and we go to school and we get married and we have babies and we live our lives just like everyone else. The differences between us and everyone else are generally unseen (medications, medical appliances, etc.), and every now and then we have to call upon every ounce of courage we can muster and go have some scary tests to make sure everything is okay.

If you find yourself in a situation where someone is implying that you couldn't have been very sick, if in fact you were ever sick at all, and that you might be a bit of a hypochondriac, remind yourself that you don't owe that person or anyone else any explanations. You don't owe anyone anything. You've paid your dues and then some. You're a survivor, a champion, a warrior, the very definition of courage and determination. And that is something no one can ever take away from you.

Bless the person who suggests anything different, and move on.

Dear God, Please help me move forward with my life, ever mindful that I am changed now, for the better and forever. Be with me as I lie on the examining table, undergo frightening and sometimes painful tests, and as I endure the seemingly endless wait for results. When others are less than kind about the differences between them and me, help me to remember that this is only between You and me. Give me the strength to bless them, turn away and face only You.
Amen