Life Matters: A Conversation about Cancer

the following message by Alistair beg is made available by truth for life for more information visit us online at truth for a few months ago here at Parkside Church I had the privilege of sitting down and conducting an interview with a member of our congregation to take an evening service and do this was step away from what is normal and yet we deemed it so important that it was a priority for us the man in question as you will discover in a moment or two was an elder of Parkside Church when I came here in 1983 someone that I immediately admired he was athletic he was bright he had a great sense of humor a wife and two daughters and an example to all of us I discovered along the way that he'd gone to Yale on a football scholarship he was the proprietor of his own business and in many ways people would have looked from the outside and said said that he just had it made and so it was a tremendous shock to us as a congregation when of all people might would be diagnosed with cancer the diagnosis was not a good one and the prognosis was even worse and so we have lived with him over these past months and discovered from him tremendous evidences of God's sustaining grace as a result of that we sat down together and talked about it talked about how he realized that his times were in God's hands talked about all kinds of things as it related to life and family and death and eternity the interview was profoundly moving and that's why we want to share it with you I hope that you're watching in his totality and when you have viewed it I will come back with one or two closing comments I remember where I was when I learned about the diagnosis that you had received because it was so striking to me how long ago did you receive the diagnosis and can you tell us what it was that they said to you in the diagnosis well I was actually back in December of 97 that it wasn't the kind of thing where I went in for a checkup and had a diagnosis it was there was like nothing wrong with me and then one Sunday evening I started coughing up blood just so that was the first symptom I had so it was I mean I I remember telling Jeff at the time I said I don't know what this isn't but I think it's pretty serious and from there they did x-rays and tests and after that I was out of it because I started bleeding uncontrollably I put me out so I had to have it reconstructed to me for my family and friends who then said that it was a large bleeding tumor in my left lung and that was the first indication I had it was just that sudden because obviously just in sitting and talking with you it's clear from your school days and into college days that physical fitness and and athletics and everything have been a large part of your life and that is something that you had been maintaining I think you'd actually been maybe even working out in the 24 hours prior to the coughing incident is that right yeah I done a little stint on the exercycle and just felt a little more tired than usual but and then a half hour later hit me given that the circumstances unfolded as they did in a in really what was a very serious way for you and taking you out of it in terms of your ability to respond when it all settled down as it were and you realized the gravity of the situation and what it was had hit you do you remember how that felt in the immediacy of that and if so can you try and give us a flavor of it it was uh it was a bit like getting punched on his stomach he just did sort of took the wind out of you and I remember it just seems so unbelievable that I would sometimes spend hours just sort of staring into space thinking you know rehash and what had happened in my mind as if I just try to absorb it somehow and the enormity of it and and it was just you know wondering you know if I would survive because initially they said inoperable incurable and that you know just trying to come to grips so that it's it's a very confusing time you just don't know what to think people often as we listen to them talk they'll often say that an encounter like that has ushered them immediately into the the the valley of despondency or of doubt or of questioning did it take you there has it taken you there I never was so much plagued by the why question is what question you know early on the Lord kind of took me to Jeremiah 18 where it speaks to God being the Potter and where the clay and got it instructed Jeremiah to go to the potter's shed and he said I will instruct you there and he showed him that the Potter was making something on the wheel and it got ruined and he made it into something else and I just felt that God was making me into something else I'd never be the same again and I didn't know what it was going to be like or for how long but I knew it was it was gonna be that he was still in control and that I just had to learn what I needed to learn in this in this setting have you found that others who with whom you've been working have benefited from your approach to that or have have you been able successfully to convince them of the value if you like of adopting that posture before the extremity of suffering well I think it's always helpful to you know during the times of darkness to remember what you've been taught in the light and it was confirming to me and a lot of you know I had a lot of head knowledge about that and it was kind of like I'd been through the class and now the Lord was saying okay lab time let's see how this works and so you do have to come to grips so then I think people obviously watch you and to see how you respond and all that and sometimes they they take inspiration from the struggle you're going through I'm talking about the struggle you're going through it would also I think be helpful to some people who are themselves struggling and some of us who are going to struggle to have some idea of what you have been going through since December of 97 is that right so it's been it's been quite a journey and for no other reason than that to give some kind of context to what these years of mentors and you give us a kind of timeline through it well I'll try to give it to you at about 30,000 feet because you can get bogged down in that and sound like an old person talking about your surgery yeah and then I had but once I was told that I was incurable inoperable they we did find one gunslinger at the clinic who said well if we give you chemo and we radiate the heck out of this we might be able to shrink it down enough that I can do the surgery and save your life Oh have you told God no I'm just kidding but that's the kind of guy you want sure you know when you're in that kind of a fiction when somebody who's confident who thinks he can do it when everybody else was afraid and touch it so they they did that and they they radiated unfortunately I already through my esophagus which burned that up and I couldn't eat and pretty painful and I lost about 50 pounds and you told people I I played football Michals Yeah right what you on the chess team but I we did that approach and then in February of 98 they in fact took out my left lung and that's a that took a while to recover from but I was doing pretty good for a number of months and then I started getting pains in my gut and I haven't told the doctor and they thought that's just side effects from the chemo and radiation that went on for a number of months and then by early 99 they found it in my thyroid so they took that out and then it came in my jaw they took that out and I grew back and then they radiated through my jaw and that was kind of rough cuz it kind of burned up my mouth and my tongue and then it came to my throat somewhere in there a couple times and they cut that out and then by April in 99 I was just totally blocked up and they I'm calm this yet but uh I couldn't eat heat or anything and they finally did some tests and found that I had sixty tumors in my small intestine so they took out about a foot and a half of that and and then by the early falling some had grown back so they did a another surgery then and these tumors are bleeding saw us constantly getting transfusions every other week and so on to that all out here and they did these surgeries and they kind of cut there and thankfully they cut over the same and you get this mark here the scar and then you get these marks along the side from Staples by a third surgery and about a year ago I before I went in the operating room I I taped a note to my stomach that said to open please cut along dotted line I thought I didn't want a new scar I just want to make sure so they did that surgery and then earlier in in 2000 they started growing tumor in my liver and then one next to my stomach and by last summer they were both pretty large and the might and the ones in my intestine grow back they pretty much had said that was it and then they tried this different chemo and it started shrinking their tumors and since the summer I've been getting chemo every three weeks and anybody surprised by that no and that's what's happened I'm sure many folks in listening to you just recount that are saying you know how can any human individual endure all of that and I know that it's a testimony to God's grace and goodness to you but I'd like to ask a question that is tangential to it if I may in it probably in people's minds as well given that journey talk to us a little bit if you would about the impact upon your family on Linda and and on the girls both in terms of your observations of them and also perhaps your feelings in relationship to yourself as the major contributory factor to this radical shift in their lives it's tough feeling like you're a burden and you know in some respects it's been like a role reversal you know my job has been to be protector and provider of the family and I can't I can't do that you know I used to be the one to say well let me carry that and now my wife says let me carry that and even to the point where just let me carry your Bible for you I mean after all these gut surgeries that you know lifting and carrying things is too difficult so I can't do a lot of those things or you know you kind of look out the window and you see something needs to be done on the yard you can't do you know and it's been difficult for them obviously sometimes I think the role of caregiver is harder than being the patient sometimes and just emotionally with a rollercoaster of my treatments for the girls to you know wonder what's gonna happen and how you know is dad gonna be okay and those kind of things but Linda's been just wonderful as a as a partner and caregiver throughout this whole time and it's really been amazing she's I call her my positive spin doctor - she's always looks at the bright side of that the doctors will say well you know even with this treatment there's only a 1% chance she'll go into remission and then they'll say well somebody's got to be in there 1% might as well be you can say okay it's good she's been my advocate she goes and researches this stuff and reads books and she keeps I mean I'm sitting here today because I'm married to Linda a year ago she kind of really pushed on getting a pathology reports out to some other hospitals and they determined that I had a different type of cancer than they thought I had here and this summer that treatment that I got was he was was changed as a result of Linda doing that in getting them to change the treatment so it's uh it's pretty amazing and the girls have different ways of dealing with it you know Bethenny's my compatriot of the humor department I don't know where she got that but I tell her she's got a good heart and a funny heart and God's gonna do great things to her but just to give you an example several weeks ago I was lying on the couch and she was kind of sitting on the floor looking up at me and she said you know Dan your eyelashes are pretty much gone you know in your your eyebrows are kind of splotchy and not much left of those yeah then I saw a little glint in her eye and she goes but the good news is those gross hairs and your nose are gone thank you honey and Meredith has deals with things a little differently she's kind of her creativity and grace come out a little different way she's she was gonna play this past spring in The Sound of Music and she played Maria in one of our dear friends was helping out with the makeup and she'd been praying for me and and something had come into her - she was praying and she said Meredith I gotta say something T and I don't know how to put this delicately but you know your dad's probably not gonna live to see your wedding but he is gonna see you no wedding gown tonight in this play and she said they both started crying but Meredith had a thought and in the in the play - they went through the wedding ceremony and just like in a regular wedding they the end they were gonna walk down the center aisle was the Lord would have it I was seated right on center aisle and when the wedding procession got to me she stopped and stooped down and gave me a kiss hey and needless to say we cried to the rest of the play but it was I'm just so grateful to God that he gave me like a foretaste of something I might not experience and I was just so grateful for that yeah gives us some idea of how God can use your family to keep you going and and help them deal with it as well you mentioned just a moment ago that scene of the kiss from your daughter and their and the thought that perhaps you wouldn't have the enjoyment of that although since you are beating these hearts so amazingly I I fully anticipate that this is the this is the first of a number of these interviews and that the sequel's will follow we'll be sitting here in 2014 reflecting on remember that one we did in 2001 you know but enough but you and your grandchildren we're sitting is it why is grandpa up there please God that it might be but given what you've said and the face to face reality of one's mortality how do you how have you in your own quiet moments in the times when it's just you and your thoughts how have you maintained peace and hope well it's I think that God himself and and his word have really you know ministered to me I obviously have more time to spend in the word now and he just gives me insights and things that really helped me to to deal with with that issue now you take members a key other passages of scripture or well I think one you referred to and a message of Psalm 31 where it says our times are in his hands we're just letting that sink in and saying that I can trust that he is he is in control of this and Psalm 139 speaks to our days were in his book before there was one of them so I'm not gonna live one day longer or one day less than God has ordained and I remember friend calling me and when this summer when it was pretty tough and when I told him what they said and it was really looking bad did he said well will will prepare for their worst and hope for the best and I thought well I don't know how to prepare for this I mean how do you prepare for a death that seems more a minute and then as I was talking I thought of John 14 were gyah said let not your heart be troubled believe in God believe also in me and if and I go to prepare a place for you you know my father's house there are many dwelling place and I go to prepare a place for UNIF it we're not saw what it told you and if I go to prepare a place we all return and receive you to myself and it just hit me this his job is preparation my job is believing I can't I can't do anything to prepare for that well says he prepares rewards for us he prepares us for glory he prepares us for our inheritance and that's all his work and the passage you read from John 11 earlier you know I'm the resurrection and the life and he who believes in me though he were dead yet shall he live and everyone who lives and believes this shall never die so it my thought about it is it's not not so much like dying as the cessation of life as that it's more like moving without having to pack and move all that stuff no you're just being relocated if I'm listening to you correctly you're saying that in the truth of the Bible as you take it to yourself there is a sense in which we can approach death unafraid how about the actual process of dying has that held fear for you if death itself is as you see moving without having to pack so that the eventualities is cared for what about the the process well I think that that can be a daunting prospect at times I can think of at least three occasions were they pretty much told me I you know I had they were speaking in terms of weeks to live and it was pretty difficult physically then you know I was in a lot of pain and in you know it was uncomfortable and you kind of about that process I I feel like God's almost prepared me for a tough exit if it comes to that but I remember reading a devotional that said you spoke of a number of things we needed to surrender in our life to God and the last thing he said was to surrender how and when I'll go home and I thought that makes sense that we have to leave that in God's hands as well as the timing as well as the process obviously your life has been radically altered as a result of the events that we've been referring to are there any particular things that you have missed and do miss as a result of the illness you know it sounds funny in it but I I'm miss looking into the mirror and seeing me mm-hmm I mean that I look so different and then I used to it's just strange to look in the mirror and see you know the 145 pound weakling or you know that gets sand kicked on his face and sweets or something I mean I used to be athletic I had hair and you know you just look I mean you freshen your teeth you look up and go it's weird and I miss your self yeah I miss myself terribly well that sounds easy for some of the people are already dreading tomorrow morning do you miss going to the office well you do I mean you know you think of I think people want to be productive in their lives and fortunately I I've come to understand that I'm productive in different ways now but you do feel funny I mean I I still get my mail sent home from the office and I read it and you know used to get excited about doing different things in the business world and I can't do it I just don't have enough of a window of time to allocate between the time I have chemo and then I start to feel better you know I'm back in it again and so you can't really think about work much so you do you do this being productive in that way but the Bible says that this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory that's far beyond all comparison so am i suffering whatever I'm doing now it's it's considered light affliction compared to Eternity and it's producing something there's something going on in heaven and as a result of what I'm experiencing here so it's hard to think about it but I try to think of being productive in different ways now than I used to be I'm sure that's very helpful to some who are listening tonight with with particular ears and I'd like you if you would to say a word or two to those who are struggling in two categories first what is it that you would want to say to somebody who had recently received a similar diagnosis to yourself and then what would you want to say to the family of that individual if you were able just to speak to them directly well I mean my heart aches for those people that go through this you know you it's just especially early on it's just so hard to absorb the enormity of of that kind of thing and I would just I would just encourage people that cling to Christ through it to just pray and and try to have some friends from the family a church family or family around to encourage them but not to give up I mean I you know I have the most dire prognosis and you know incurable and opera what those words were like and some might have that or just the uncertainty of it but I would just encourage them to you know put their their faith and trust in in Christ and no matter what happens you know he'll see us through you know it's important to have not just a good attitude but a an attitude of faith you know when you look at Psalm 23 it talks about surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and then forevermore so whether I would or they would go to the mountaintop of recovery which would be great that's one good scenario but the other scenario is to go to the mountaintop of eternity with Christ and that's also a good result and you just try to keep that perspective as far as the family - yeah I mean it's hard for me even though I've been through it to speak to that because it's so difficult and painful but I would just encourage them to draw close to God stay in the word and and look for his comfort it's helpful again deep do you find that given the the the brush with mortality that you speak concerning Christ to unbelievers with a greater sense of urgency and to the extent that you do given that as Marie McShane once said and he died at the age of 29 as the minister of st. Peter's and dandy and Scotland he said that you know we're we're dying men speaking to dying men and women that that is that is true of each of us obviously as life ebbs away speak for a moment if you would just to somewhere out here tonight and for whom this is quite interesting oh there was a fella there some chap called Fox and he's done a really good job you know and I was encouraged to hear what he had to say what what what do you like to say to someone perhaps you've had an incident in in a hospital context where someone has been in a similar situation to yourself has there been a way that you've been able to unpack the good news to to help well I think when you're you know for a while I was sick and I didn't look the part you know I now I look more the parts of people grant me a little of grace when I and more direct I think because they see well this guy's been through it I'll listen to him but I remember early on when I was going through that time with the radiation and they had put me back in the hospital and I was in a lot of pain and they they had me on a straight morphine drip which is you know about as much as they can do for pain and that kind of knocks you for a loop and I recalled one day I was I was just praying I felt so out of I felt like lord I didn't know if I was gonna live or die and I felt like my life was somebody had pushed a giant hold button and I was and I'm just like sitting around wait what's gonna happen I said Lord Here I am I'm I'm drugged up I'm sick I'm weak I've lost 50 pounds I I said can you even use me like this so what did you know what's the purpose of this then I fell asleep and while I was sleeping they brought in a someone into my room had the bed next to me had been empty and he put a guy in there and the curtain was drawn and I never even saw him and that day I had no interaction with him or anything because the curtain was drawn and then about 11 o'clock at night the nurse came in and said here's your sleeping pill okay and then you know you got about 15 minutes in there like in la-la land and I'm just about to doze off when I hear this voice from the other side of the curtain so do you in for I had two thoughts one was not now Lord and the second one as I thought it was a better question for being in prison what are you in for armed robbery how about you and so I said by lung cancer he said so am i I said bummer and he said I went in for radiation today but they had a stop because my heart started to acting up he said I had a heart transplant about five years ago on it I don't know if I can take the treatments and he just started talking about his family and how much he loved his wife and children and how God had helped him and so on I listened and I just had this sense that it wasn't quite connecting there was still something missing and I and I said now mind you I'm still kind of out of it and I I said well I realize I didn't know his name I said what what your name is Nick I said well Nick if you were to die tonight and stand before the gates of heaven and God were to ask you why should I let you in what would you tell him he said well I'd tell him I you know I haven't I tried to live a good life and I haven't you know done anything really terrible and huh taking care of my family I love my family and he was gone I said well what if God were to say well heavens a perfect place if you haven't been perfect and I let you in it would kind of mess things up he's well then nobody could get in I said well that's right and this is where it got to the point where I was like the talking head because I was so out of it it was like God was just talking through me and I said well think back I said here's what it's like I said if you think back five years ago I said you had a bad heart I said there was nothing you can do to fix it there was nothing that doctors could do to fix it and you needed help from outside of yourself as a matter of fact someone had to die in order that you might live and I said what you had was a heart transplant from another individual that gave you a new life I said in the same way Christ wants to give you a spiritual heart transplant to give you a new life and take away the sin and to have a fresh start and he said Wow it was and I said well would you like to ask Christ to give you a spiritual heart transplant and he said yeah and I prayed with him and he asked Christ to take away his sins and forgive him and give him a new heart like his and to be the kind of person that God wanted him to be and we both went to sleep and the next morning they changed his room and I never saw him again it was just like a divine appointment and later that night at nurse came in at about 3 o'clock in the morning and woke me up for my vitals I love that do you think my temperature is gonna change that much couldn't we wait yeah the worst one if somebody comes in and says we have to wait you know I am NOT getting out of his bed but I to this day I don't know how the conversation turned to spiritual things but I started I told her what I told Nick and asked if I could pray for her I did and when I opened my eyes she was crying and she said thank you and she left and I never saw her again and then I said lord I think I'm I'm getting it Lord mm-hmm that no matter how weak and debilitated we are that God can use us and probably even better because he says my strength is made perfect in your weakness and I had plenty of weakness to offer him and he showed me that even in that drugged stupor and everything else that he could use me and to this day I just felt that I wanted to just serve Him as long as I had just like he came to serve and to give his life a ransom for many and he knew he was going to die so I thought what better way to finish my days however many I have and just keep serving and giving and not worry about how long I'm cut well there you are I wonder if you find that to be as moving and as helpful as each of us did on that particular evening actually I'm sure you did it may even be that you're seated in your family room or with some friends in a home and you're actually confronted now by this ultimate question the one that's posed so forcibly by Mike throughout the whole interview and that is what happens to me when I take that final journey to ask that question is not to be more of it it's just to be realistic there is a sense in which the pastor's responsibility is to prepare people how to make the transition from time to eternity in short to prepare oneself and those under one's care for death life is frail death is real and the opportunity for faith is right there for each one of us jesus says I want to invite you to come to me and I wonder if you have ever come to Christ not simply intellectually believing that there was or Jesus or even believing accurately what Jesus said but coming and trusting in him if you like not simply knowing the menu but eating the meal not simply being aware of the train timetable but getting on the train not just saying well I think the Bible is true and that Jesus is who he said he was but actually coming to cast ourselves upon him sometimes I tell my friends that that just really involves the ABCs that there's something to admit namely that I'm a sinner and that I need a Savior something to believe namely that Jesus came to be the Savior that I've just admitted that I need something to consider namely that it will be a radical alteration in my life to have someone come and take over the driving seat and then something to do and I invite you where you are today if you have never turned the reins of your life over to Jesus Christ if you have never asked him to be for you a savior and a friend a guide through the journey of your days and then the one who will take you safely into his presence then just where you are why not turn to him and if that is your desire and if you feel that you would be helped by literature or by talking with someone then we'll be delighted to hear from you here at truth for life we always are we're grateful for any feedback that comes to us and particularly now we would love to be able to pass this on to Mike or to his family incidentally I was with Mike just two days ago and we talked about his memorial service and the plans for it and as he faces death squarely I find him still a remarkable testimony of faith and trust in the Lord Jesus I hope that each of us will be as prepared as he is when the day comes I'm Alistair beg for truth for life I look forward to talking with you soon this message was brought to you from truth for life where the learning is for living to learn more about truth for life with Alistair beg visit us online at truth for

Channel: Alistair Begg

Views: 2,567

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: Interview

Id: XVecfYCVNeU

Length: 38min 51sec (2331 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 14 2020