Posts
When you’re diagnosed with cancer, the path of avoidance is closed. So, like it or not, cancer puts you on a path, you’d rather not take.
Yet from a spiritual, and maturational standpoint, this path presents an opportunity to grow and develop important character traits that cannot not and will not develop in our lives, until we pass through the fire of affliction, and suffering, on the road less traveled.
Romans 5:3-5
And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope. Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
Who wants to live without perseverance, character, and hope?
Isn’t there any easier way to develop these traits? I suspect there isn’t.
Robert Frost in his poem The Road Not Taken wrote the following:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
I wonder why Robert Frost chose the road less traveled when the well traveled road was open and available. He tells us that taking the road less traveled was the correct choice. The Bible says this about the well-traveled road:
There is a way that seems right to a man,
But its end is the way of death.
(Proverbs 16:25)
Each of us are confronted with many forks in the road. We must chose between the well traveled or less traveled road. The well-traveled road frequently seems right, simply because it’s the path the majority of people choose.
In my 68 years, I’ve traveled down both roads, and I’ve watched others travel down both roads. More often than not the well traveled road ends exactly the way the Bible says it will, with death.
I’ve seen marriages of 30 plus years end in divorce, when the road less traveled offered a pathway to reconciliation.
I’ve heard from a heartbroken wife, whose husband was cured of prostate cancer. Like many men who’ve had their prostate removed, he lost his ability to maintain an erection. He got stuck on the road of despair. He isolated himself from his wife, friends and family. He self medicated his pain with large doses of alcohol, every day.
Eventually, this man who was blessed with a cure to his prostate cancer, committed suicide. He left behind a loving, bewildered, heartbroken, and grief stricken wife.
I doubt he was aware of the many options open to to men coping with erectile dysfunction after a prostatectomy. I doubt he went to a doctor to discuss options such as medication, penile injections, or penile implant surgery.
After hearing this tragic story of a man who was given a new lease on life after he was cured from cancer, only to take his own life, I wanted to do something to prevent that from happening again. It’s why my wife and I wrote the book Everything You Never Wanted to Know About Erectile Dysfunction and Penile Implants-End Your Sadness, Silence, Suffering and Shame.
My wife and I were delighted to hear from a reader who said:
“This book has immediately changed the dynamic between my wife and I.”
Right now, you might be faced with a fork in the road. Hopelessness, despair, and broken relationships is on one fork in the road. The other path isn’t easy, it takes work. It involves a change in thinking, a change in your sexuality, your emotional life, your psychological life, your relational life and your spiritual life.
Prostate cancer will not leave you where it found you. Remember one road leads to anger, bitterness, isolation, and broken relationships.
The other leads to kindness, compassion, empathy, appreciation, and a heighten ability to love.
What’s true about your relationship with yourself and other people, is also true about your faith. Prostate cancer won’t leave your faith where it found you. You will either grow closer to God and grow deeper in your faith, or let your relationship drift away.
In my ten year journey as a prostate cancer survivor, I’ve walked down both of these roads. In fact I got stuck on the road of anger, bitterness, conflict, and despair.
it took professional help, for my wife and I to take the road less traveled. As Robert Frost observed, choosing the road less traveled made all the difference!
Which road are you currently traveling?
Is it the road you allowed yourself to drift on to?
Are you stuck?
Do you want to live with cancer and the aftermath of treatment in a different way?
If you’re reading this article, it means you have the necessary personality trait to change the road you’re on. You’re curious, willing to hear other perspectives, which means you possess a teachable spirit.
Imagine going outside to your car. You get in, turn the key, and discover nothing happens. Your battery is dead as a door nail. What’s your next move?
The one thing you won’t do, is to stay in the car hoping your situation will change.You get out of the car and do something. You get help. That’s exactly what’s needed if you’re stuck on the wrong road coping with cancer.
Rick Redner & his wife Brenda Redner authored two award winning books, both available on Amazon. They are:
&
