Leadership Thought: Words of Hope to a Stage 3B Cancer Recipient

Dear Friends

Napoleon once said that leaders are dealers of hope. Hope is a necessary commodity for all those who want to live healthy and satisfying lives. Someone said, “We can live four weeks without food, four days without water, four  minutes without air but four seconds without hope. Hope keeps us going.” Hope is grief’s best music,” (Henry George Bohn, Encyclopedia of Quotations, Edyth Draper, p. 321)

A year ago, I was diagnosed with stage 3B colon cancer. I remember the shock I felt when I heard the report of the biopsy. Stage 3 was bad enough, but to add a B to it was like a sucker punch to the gut. It was like Stage 3 or 3A weren’t dire enough, so they  stretched my diagnoses as close to the edge of Stage 4 as possible.

As I sat in his office, I was shocked when I heard those words from my oncologist, Dr. Laughinghouse: "You have stage 3B cancer." With my wife, Jean, and my daughter Betsy sitting on either side of me, his words hit me hard, and with his words still fresh in my mind, I remember my efforts to take control of the situation.

Looking Dr. Laughinghouse straight in the eye, I shared my faith and confidence in him, and I assured him that whatever time I had left I planned to do everything I could do to fight this disease that had threatened my  life. I am sure he sensed some resignation in my response, and in return he spoke some words I will never forget. He said. 'We are not here to prolong your life; we are going for the cure."

Since that meeting in his office,  I have tightly clung to the hope these words have brought me. And so, I began my 10-month battle with chemo fortified with the hope that the goal of my treatment was not simply to prolong my life but to "go for the cure."

Proverbs  18:21 remind us that “the tongue has the power of life and death”, so we need to be especially careful that we use it to help and heal others. .

The Apostle Paul  reminds us that we are “to encourage one another and build others up just as in fact you are doing” 1 Thess, 5:11.

Years ago, I remember hearing Richard De Vos, the founder of Amway, talk about the importance of the” positive push.” Everyone needs a “positive push”, he said,  and then he went on to explain that  ”People can go further than they think they can when someone else thinks they can.”

Wherever we go, we should be hope dispensers, always looking for ways to use our words and actions to distribute large amounts of hope to everyone. Why everyone? Because everyone needs hope of some kind.

Eliphaz speaks these words about his friend Job: “Your words have supported those who have stumbled. You have strengthened feeble knees.”

Good words  and good advice. Do you know anyone who is stumbling along the pathway of life? Do you know anyone  in need of strengthened knees? If so, you have ministry to do and hope to dispense. It just might impact someone’s life just as it did mine.

Yours in faith and friendship,

Pastor Tom