God writes straight with crooked lines, Part 1.

Numbers 3, 4, 5, & 6 show where the mass was found.

I woke up during my first colonoscopy, on June 30th. Not a pleasant experience to say the least. My stomach hurt terribly. I must have pointed to it or moaned something because they asked me if my stomach hurt, and then I must have nodded or grunted "yeah" because I soon fell back asleep. But before I did, I remember looking up at the screen and seeing the mass inside my colon. I remember thinking, "Well, looks like they found something." I then heard one of the nurses say with pity in her voice, "Oh my goodness, he's so young." Not a phrase you want to hear in the middle of an exploratory procedure. When I came to in the recovery room, I was totally out of it. My poor wife. The doctor sat down with her before coming into the recovery room and was very concerned. He told her he thought it was cancer and we needed to get it looked at right away. They took a biopsy and we would get results in 2-3 days. He asked if she wanted to tell me or if she wanted him to. Her head was foggy. She asked the doctor to tell me thinking I might have questions, but she didn't know how loopy I was. The doctor explained it to me. After he left, I "joked" with Stefanie, "Well, I'm glad I got life insurance!" I seriously thought it was probably benign. My mind wouldn't travel to the point of even considering I had cancer. My wife, on the other hand, took it a lot harder. She was in tears the next few days, thinking she was going to lose her husband and become a widow raising five children on her own.

The tumor.

The next day, July 1st, I went to work. I had Chris Tomlin's "Angel Armies" going through my head all day and really for the whole week. The kids sang it at the VBS program the Friday before (thanks Molly Steffen). The lines "I know who goes before me, I know who stands behind. The God of angel armies is alway by my side" and "nothing formed against me shall stand, You hold the whole world in Your hands" kept playing in my head over and over. That night, I looked it up on the internet. There is a clip of Chris Tomlin explaining were the song came from. See it here. A couple in the middle of the night full of fear and anxiety opened to 2 Kings 6 where Elisha asked God to open the eyes of his servant to reveal the blazing angel army protecting them. It reminded me that we don't see what God is doing. As Stef and I watched it together, we held each other and wept.

On July 2nd, I woke up early to sit in our sunroom and listen to Ravi Zacharias's "Questions of a Man in Agony, Part 2." (I had listened to part 1 earlier when we learned about Reeve's diagnosis.) What an encouragement! It was as if every word formed to make that sermon was meant to encourage and uplift me. Hear it here. Ravi shared a story of a POW during the vietnam war. Under unfathomable circumstances, he wrote a poem about Mary at the feet of Jesus on the Cross:

Her face showed grief, but not despair

Her head though bowed, had faith to spare

But even now she could suppose

His thorns might somehow yield a rose

A life with him was full of signs

That God writes straight with crooked lines

Dark clouds can hide the rising sun

And all seem lost, when all be won!

I was in tears all the way to work reflecting on these words. Later Stef told me that when she woke up and did her devotion, she was encouraged by Deuteronomy 30:20 (NIV): "and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers..."

At work, I updated the milan center team about the tumor. Joe Beer reminded me of my wife's words spoken just a few weeks back. We were talking about another person who was going through some tremendous trials in his life and my wife said, "God must really be refining him."

Later at work, I overheard a conversation that Kathy Baumert, Milan Center Office Manager, and another lady by the name of Pam were having. They hadn't seen each other for a long time and were catching up. She was a colon cancer survivor and was doing well. I couldn't help but think I overheard this for a reason.

I received a call at 4:30pm. I was scheduled to work until 6pm. The voice on the other end said, "the biopsy showed malignancy". I was alone. I sat down and my head started spinning. I began to shake uncontrollably. I knew I had to get back in the mill and finish the day. I turned off my phone because I didn't want to tell Stef over the phone. I stood up, pulled myself together, and got back to work, not allowing myself to process what I just heard. I just started praying, "God, don't take me. I can't leave my family. God, please don't take me."

I came home from work and told Stef. We talked and hugged and wept. We felt peace. We knew a lot of people were already praying about it. Stef said, "I can't wait until we're 80 years old and saying remember that time when..." We chuckled imagining that, but we hoped.

Soon after that, Rusty Gann was driving by and felt he should turn around and stop in, so he did. I told him that the tumor was malignant. It was nice to have him around for awhile.

We called my immediate family. Mom wanted to get prayers going, so she shared it with Lynn Stieglitz. Lynn shared it with the Leo church at Wednesday evening services. We immediately began to get a flood of texts, encouraging and uplifting us.

Joe and Jan Beer stopped by after church and later Lynn Stieglitz did as well. The reality of the truth was becoming more and more real, but we felt the prayers lifting us and we felt at peace. To be continued...