I’ve had a hard time writing this blog post — harder than any of the others — mostly because this week has been rough. I’m on my last week of radiation, just two treatments left. More specifically, only 2,481 minutes until I can head back to Austin. I’ve been counting, obviously.
But now that I’m this close to the end, my body has decided to remind me who’s really in charge. I’ve started showing signs of what I’m calling radiation sickness. I don’t think that’s the official medical term, but it sounds like something out of an Andy Weir book, which makes it sound a little more sci-fi and a little less miserable — so I’m sticking with it.
In reality, it’s more like the inside of my body has a permanent sunburn. That probably sounds dramatic, but that’s the only way I can describe it. It hurts to move, to sit, to do much of anything. I’ve tried to keep these blogs mostly positive, and there’s been plenty of good stuff to mention — my buddy Dave and his son came to Austin for Formula 1, then John came down from Dallas the next weekend for a great Texas game, and I even had a sip of Old Forester 2025 Birthday Bourbon that was absolutely amazing.
But this week, it’s been hard to keep up the optimism. I know this will pass — I’m hopeful it’ll happen quickly once radiation wraps up — but right now, it just sucks. I’ve been proud of how I’ve handled things up to this point, but when this new pain kicked in, I found myself asking God why.
I don’t always get answers to questions like that — at least not in ways that are obvious to someone like me. But every once in a while, I get what feels like a modern-day version of a burning bush moment (that’s an Old Testament reference, for the record).
On Sunday, I was talking to a buddy from church who’s always been a bit more spiritually dialed in than I am — and who’s been through his own share of hard seasons. He said something that really stuck:
“Maybe sometimes God puts us in shitty situations because someone else going through something worse needs someone good to get through theirs.”
I don’t know if that’s true in my case or not, but it hit me. He might’ve stolen that from Judah Smith, who’s a pastor we both like, or maybe it’s a line from a Macklemore song — I’m not sure and don’t really care. It makes sense either way.
And maybe that’s part of the point of this whole thing — that it’s not always about what we’re going through, but how we handle it while we’re in it. So instead of sitting here feeling sorry for myself, I’m going to get my sunburned-insides self up, stop whining, and go walk around Houston on this unexpectedly cool October d
Comments
Praying for you!
It’s hard not to compare your situation to that of Job. Like you he found himself asking God why. In Job 38-42, God reveals to Job His greatness, but Job never gets his answer as to why this happened to him. It turns out, Job just needed to trust that God is Good and in Control. That doesn’t mean, however, that God didn’t have a reason. Because Job went through what he went through, we have the book of Job to help us through the hard times. I truly believe that at least a small part of the reason God allowed Job’s suffering is because He is all-knowing, and He knew that in 4000 years you would be in radiation treatment, and would be encouraged to know that He is in control and He is good indeed.