Bonus Time (by Jennings)

This is part of a series of short posts I'm writing to reflect on what God has done in my life and how my experience with cancer -- the pressures and the opportunities -- has changed me. I hope that it may have some benefit to encourage others.

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Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money". Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that." James 4:13-15

When I heard that my cancer had returned, as a metastasis (one to be treated "aggressively"), my whole outlook changed. Would the treatment work? Would I make it to age 53? To 60? Suddenly, planning for the future took on a new meaning... would I *have* a future, in this world? For how long? I was still reeling, emotionally, when Douglas called me from Uganda. "I have bad news." One of our dear friends in Nairobi had died of a heart attack. Out of the clear blue, at his son's soccer game. He was only 62, a runner, in excellent health, as far as we all knew. I was worried about my lifespan in terms of years... but nothing is promised to us, not the next five minutes.



As I wrote before, one of the hardest things about cancer treatment was how much I missed our life in Bunia. It suddenly seemed so far away, I felt I might never be there again. So we planned to make a trip there after the treatment was over, in the summer... provided, of course, that the treatment was successful without making me to weak to travel so far! Looking forward to that trip was one of the things that really kept my spirits up. Sometimes I daydreamed about what I would do when I walked through the front gate of our house, and the dogs ran up to greet me. I imagined I would just sink to the ground and dissolve in tears of joy to see them, tears of sorrow for the lost time.

God, in His great mercy, allowed me to live. My end-of-treatment scan in June showed no cancer, and I was cleared to make the trip. Returning to Bunia, being in our house, with our dogs, seeing friends, going to the office... it was all like a dream. Every morning, I got up, looked around, and thought how lucky I was to be there. As corny as it sounds, I literally thought, "Now, I could die happy." Not that the annoying things weren't still annoying... the noise, the lack of electricity, the dust... but I could honestly feel pure joy at just being there.

Since then, I've tried to keep that attitude. I had asked God to heal me and to let me return to Bunia, and He did. Any time after that that He lets me stay here in this life is "bonus" time. This day was not promised to me. It puts into perspective a lot of the small things that can irritate me. I am less inclined to complain about things when I think about how blessed I am just to be alive.

I've read that one of the best antidotes to anxiety is... gratitude. so this practice of thinking, in the moment, about how lucky I am just to be here, helps to keep my heart soft and grateful, and combats anxiety. It is an ongoing learning process, and I still struggle with anxiety sometimes, and with anger. But thinking of my life as "bonus time" helps.

It also helps me to think in a more focused way about the future. Since I don't know how much more time I have here, I want to make the most of it. I want to be bolder, to take greater risks, to be more generous: to say what I have to say and to do what I ought to do.

This idea of living in "bonus time" is one of the great gifts that has come from this experience.