Without wanting to sound overly dramatic, I should be dead.   Curiously, I’m not.   The doctor told me that I had a fifty-fifty chance of seeing last Christmas.   So far, so good!

‘And what are my chances after that?’ I asked.

He drew a graph of life expectancy over time.  It was a straight-line graph that showed that I had a zero probability of being alive in five years.

I’d got a nasty “stage 4” cancer, you see… and it was all rather surreal.

To be honest, I don’t remember much about the dreary months of having needles stuck into me administering cocktails of horrendous poisons.   But I do remember my first visit — largely because of a nurse.   She was wonderful.   After making me promise not to Google the chemicals she was about to put into my veins (how’s that supposed to make you feel!) she fussed about, pausing her irrepressible humour occasionally to say, “You poor Dear.”  She was honest, encouraging and compassionate.

Let me say that the levity she showed in my dire situation was aided and abetted by the presence of my twin brother who’d insisted on accompanying me to protect and to love in a way that is unique to twins.  He was a great foil for my nurse’s wit and humour — when my own foil began to flag.

When I wasn’t entertained by watching her poke a pen into her curly red hair… and then trying to find it again when she needed it, she rhapsodised with us over the genious of the Welsh rugby ledgend, Gareth Edwards and the singing in the stadium at Cardiff Arms Park.   We were tempted to sing their unofficial anthem, the hymn Cym Rhondda, but wisdom prevailed and we settled instead on quoting the poetry of Dylan Thomas — specifically his poem, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.   Ironically, it is a poem about death.

Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

I was interested to learn that one of the poisons (and I might say, the least toxic) was paclitaxil.   It comes from the bark of the Pacific yew tree, Taxus brevifolia.   Evidently, Native Americans used it to make anti-inflammatory treatments — before big pharmaceutical companies took it over, fiddled with it and increased the price tag by a zillion precent.

The doctors had told me that my cancer was incurable… and that the best they could do was to prolong my life for as long as possible.   But amazingly, the doctors can (at the time of writing) now find no sign of the cancer.  One doctor, who claims no faith at all, has called it a miracle.

It is all wonderfully strange.   I mean: why me?   As a pastor, I have stood beside the beds of many people and watched the grip of cancer tighten until that miraculous thing called life trickled away.  They were not healed.   But I was.

Why?

I’ve no idea — for what I can assure you is that I am no more deserving of being healed than anyone else.   My healing was even more bewildering given that, as a Christian, I was very content to die and be with my Lord.

So, I have no idea why I am still alive.  All I can do is trust God’s purposes.  What I am convinced of is that my healing is a gift, a sacred entrustment that comes with the responsibility of using well.   It would seem I have yet more people to reach with love and truth.

When I was being treated for cancer, people said I was brave.   It was an odd thing to hear… because I’ll tell you what true bravery is.   It is my wife wrestling with the prospect of grief, yet keeping the family together.   It’s her fighting for me by researching and making various anti-cancer brews… and driving my to my interminable medical appointments… and keeping both home and church running.   Wow!   That’s bravery.

As I’ve already said, I was never afraid of dying.   Knowing God’s love meant that I could simply rest back into his arms… and be content.  Cancer brought no big spiritual renaissance or revelation.   I loved God before I got cancer; I loved him as much during cancer, and I love him now they can’t find any cancer.   What having cancer did do, however, is highlight even more the absurdity of pandering to ego or chasing riches and a hedonistic life dedicated to collecting tee-shirts from Bali.

Life is so much more.   Those who do not know God’s gospel of hope are, in reality, soul-blightingly destitute when it comes to hope, identity and purpose.   And so it should be of not surprise to you that a passion to make God’s love and truth known in our time is something that burns within me more than ever.

So, let me ask: Do you know this hope?   If not, will you search it out?