My friend Dale has spent the last few years living this cancer-life, although he was told at one time that his life span was a matter of months. But here he is, still popping up out of the box. And he’s not alone. Many of us are in that boat: a flurry of crises, treatments, and then the waiting.

Dale is the one who visualized life with cancer as a game of Whack-a-Mole, and I have to heartily agree. Sometimes you pop up into bright lights and laughing people. Sometimes you can barely make it out of the box. And sometimes the hammer hits.

The hard part is not cringing all the time, waiting for the hammer to hit. That’s not a healthy way to live—and I’m all about healthy.

Although I didn’t get to choose whether or not to be in this battle, I do get to make a lot of choices along the way. And the major choice I’m making is how I will live and what kind of Ambassador for God I will be in the living. For, I know that God holds me in His hands as He always has.

“Listen to me, you descendants of Jacob, all the remnant of the people of Israel,
you whom I have upheld since your birth, and have carried since you were born.
⁴ Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you.
I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you.
Isaiah 46:3-4