christian testimony of tony snow

............take about five minutes and read this
................................it is worth it



"...Blessing arrive in unexpected packages, in my case, cancer. Those of us with potentially fatal diseases - and there are millions in america today - find ourselves in the odd position of coping with our maortality while trying to fathom God's will. Altho it would be the height of presumption to declare with confidence "What it all means"
Scripture provides powerful hints & consolations.

1. we shouldn't spend too much time trying to answer "why" questons" 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 indiputable fact. Yet even while staring into a mirror darkly, great and stunning truths begin 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 ourlives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between now and the moment we meet our Creator face-to-face.
2. 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 parting; you worry about theimpact 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 hourney continues after we have finished our days on this earth. We accept this onfaith, but that faith is nourished by a conviction that stirs even within many non believing hearts- an intuition that the gift of life, once given, cannot be taken away. those who have been stricken enjoy the special privelege of being able to fight with their might, main, and faith to live fully, richly, exuberantly - no matter how their days may be numbered.
3. 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 lies to off-road. He provokes us with twists and turns. He places us in prdicaments that seem to defy our endurance and comprehension - eand 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 measures of wisdom and joy we would not experience otherwise.

"You have been called"

Picture yourself in a hospital bed. The fog of anesthesia has begun to wear away. Adoctor 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 t 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 insignificane the banal concerns that occupy our "normal time". there's another kind of response, altho usually short-lived an inexplicable shudder of excitement, as if a clarigying 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 somehting 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 short of fearful caution. the life of belief tems 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 throught selflessness and sevice that God wrings from our bodies and spirits the most we ever could give, the most we ever could do.

Finally, we can let love change everything. When Jesus was faced with the prospect of crucifixion, 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 acquire purpose and satisfaction by sharing in God's love for others. Sickness gets us part way there. It reminds us of oour 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 of 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 love. I sat by my best firend's bedside a few years ago as a wasting cancer took him away. He kept at his table a worn Bible. A shattering grief disabled his family, many of his old friends, and at least one pastor. 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 retained 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." His 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 throws of sickness point the rest of us toward tiemless 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 enought 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 throw reminders in our way. think of the prayer warriors in our midst. Thay 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 feeal a surge of the Spirit. Somehow you just know: Others have chosed, 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 luminous and intense. We may not know how our contest with sickness will end, but, we have felt the ineluctable touch of God.

What is mand that Thou art of? 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."

The End

Acts 16:30 & 31--"...Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house."