Like any good life-changing blog, let's start with some disclaimers:
Disclaimer #1: Before going any further, if you didn't read my previous post, "The Eyes Never Lie" you should or none of this will make any sense. Click here to read that post. Or if its your first time to this blog, you may be very confused so start HERE and catch your way up to where we are at now, because this story keeps getting crazier and I want you to discover how it all started.
Disclaimer #2: Alternative Treatments & Iridology - Thank you to those who are open enough to understand that God can speak directly to us through a variety of mediums including pastors, friends, dreams and even 'pseudo-science' experiences. Micah the nutritionist, a fellow follower of Christ, feels he has been called by God to heal people through, not 'new age medicine' as many people call it, but very 'old medicine'. He does so by calling upon crazy types of magical wizardry such as fruits, vegetables and self-discipline. Crazy I know! And I'm pissed about it because he didn't even try to sell me any crystal medallions to wear! So to you doubters, I know this may ruin your whole snake-oil argument. But if you'd like to talk more about snake-oil, I'd love to review my hospital bills with you. Amazing what we'll pay for because a doctor said so...
For those of you who have completely written me off because I mentioned a 'pseudo-science', I'm sorry to see you go. Please understand I am not telling everyone to hurry to their local iridologist to obtain their own personal life change. All I can say is that in my life, right now, with these circumstances, God used a fellow believer and this random experience to speak truth to me, which is influential in why I'm writing this post. I hope you are open-minded enough to understand this. Plus, if you think iridology is crazy, you should stick around to see what I'm going to do next!
Disclaimer #3: With all of the support, scriptures and love you've given me, writing this post is still hard! It's so hard to bare your soul to the world and honestly say, 'This is me. This is what I hold deep down inside as the hope for my future. And if this goes bad, if my hopes are offered to the world and I fail miserably, I've got nothing left. What I thought was at the core of my true being turned out to be a failure. And now, because I opened my big mouth, everybody knows what a loser I am...'
This feeling I'm experiencing is called resistance. We all typically feel it when we stand up to face that 'one thing' we know we need to do more than anything else. And it's so easy to cower in the face of resistance. Like I've been known to do in the past, you might also be pretty good at justifying why you can't afford to face your resistance. It may even include excuses about a lack of time, money, energy, knowledge, risk or a fear of losing our social status. Sound familiar?
While my words might not seem like a big deal to you, the resistance keeping me from actually posting this is overwhelming. Why? Fear. I am afraid because I don't know what will happen next.
So I must Jump.
Picking up where we left off...
"David, your body has just hit the pause button on your life. You can keep doing the things you've been doing or you can make a change and as strange as it may sound, potentially cure yourself."
So I told Micah, for as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a communicator. When I was young I thought that maybe I should be an actor, but quickly realized I didn't want to 'act' as someone else. I wanted to be me. So as I got older I realized that the thing that makes me buzz with excitement, that keeps me up at night and forces me out of bed in the morning is speaking live to a group of people. While this may come across as a complete let-down to all of you who were hoping I wanted to become a ventriloquist or a jockey, my final answer is that I just want to talk to people about something I care deeply about. Simple, right? I've actually spoken to large groups of people 10 times or so and loved every minute, every ounce of it. But I've never pursued it further. I didn't have the guts. I've never known what to say. I've never had a unique story that I thought was worth retelling. Honestly, I just didn't think you would be interested in lending me your ear.
But deep down, I know that I am a communicator. I must speak. I must write. I must connect with people.
It's funny. When I look at my life now as a partner for Dot&Cross, I have gotten as close as possible to doing this very thing, yet without having to risk my secret hope. How? Everyday I wake up and I communicate, but I do so by communicating through our partners. I have a unique opportunity to help build concepts, write scripts, and create strategic plans with amazing people such as Marcus Buckingham, Donald Miller, Rob Bell, Francis Chan, Matthew Sleeth, Josh Shipp & Tim Keller, as well as a variety of amazing companies and organizations. I get the chance to work with unbelievable people who shape the way I think and in return, I get to participate in the building of their projects which create an amazing impact on the world. What a gift I've been given! This is why I'm quick to say I love my job!
Please don't get me wrong, I don't want to come across as a name-dropper, but I must impress upon you how easy it would be for me to sit back, rest on my laurels and say, "I've got a pretty good thing going. Let's not mess this up by taking any drastic actions."
But jumping always includes drastic actions.
I've spent years working to formulate concepts for some amazing people, but I've never had my own message. I've never dedicated myself to say that THIS is what I stand for. I want to communicate from my heart as opposed to always working through someone else. But my struggle has always been finding a message I believe in enough to potentially throw everything else away. This is the moment when resistance raises up it's ugly head and smugly taunts, "But David, what will you say?"
All said and done, I've always been a great communicator for others, but I've always struggled with what to say from my own heart.
So after explaining this in great detail to Micah about the details of what my emotional heart is crying out for, he asked me a strange question, "David, Where is your tumor... exactly?" Hmm, I thought we had already covered this, but maybe I never actually told him where it was, so I explained it to him:
"The tumor which is 7 cm x 5 cm is in the frontotemporal lobe of my left brain. Typically, doctors resect or remove tumors like this, but mine is so big it is actually meshed like chicken wire throughout important portions of my brain so they've deemed it inoperable. A resection would probably cause severe detriment to the the speech portions of my brain because it lies directly between the Broca's Area and Wernicke's Area. The doctors essentially told me a failed resection would cause damage to the wires that connect these two areas allowing me the ability to both comprehend and create speech. Oh, and the tumor is also kinda sitting on top of my right motor cortex which controls the function of the right side of my body which sucks because I'm right handed and I love to write."
Micah stared at me with his mouth somewhat hanging open. Immediately, I caught onto what he was thinking and I felt my stomach turn over inside of me. For the first time since I learned of this tumor, all of my confusing thoughts filed into line and started making sense. This cancer was indeed designed for me. Could the stress in my life caused by running from God actually be causing the growth of the tumor in the one place I need the most, my speech comprehension and creation areas? The idea that this correlation is even a possibility brings me to my final small disclaimer regarding the nature of our existence in the universe.
Disclaimer #4: Micah is not a Doctor. He is not a brain surgeon, an oncologist, a radiologist or a psychiatrist. In fact, he clarified all of these things with me before we began to hypothesize on what I'm about to tell you. So please, for crying out loud, control your skepticism and cynicism for just one quick second and take a giant step back to understand that your textbooks and your $150,000+ education cannot explain the intricacies of this universe. Open your mind enough to at least consider the mysterious collaboration between our minds, bodies, spirits, nature and cosmos within the universe.
And if you think I sound like a hippie saying these things, also know that I believe in a God who creatively traffics the connection between all of these elements and their integration in our lives. And despite our feeble understanding while on this earth, I hope one day in heaven we somewhat begin to fathom how big and wide His creation actually is, even encompassing ideas many of us scoff at and reject today. I hope we also comprehend, if only partially, how intricate and precise He was in creating each of us, exactly as He wanted, even knowing the number of our days before the world began.
Just because our minds cannot imagine how both intricate and vast God is, let it speak more of our limitations, not His.
Sorry, that was the last disclaimer / tangent. In other words, as my mother would say, 'don't get your panties in a knot' over what Micah said to me next...
"Knowing full well that every doctor you've seen has said they have no idea what could have caused this tumor. Knowing full well that you have never received trauma to the head as a child that could have caused this tumor. Could it be that the stress your emotional heart has endured since you were a child, knowing exactly what you should be doing with your life, communicating truth, which is something you say has never totally been fulfilled in your life has somehow caused an overwhelming battle within that exact portion of your brain?
Could it be that your deep and ongoing emotional struggle to fulfill your life's purpose has actually been the cause for the progression of this tumor?
David, I'm not sure radiation or chemotherapy will heal you. I also not sure changing your diet or taking herbal supplements will heal you. If you want to be healed of this tumor, you must face this issue head on. It could be the source of all your issues."
Strangely enough, since he said this I've been doing quite a bit of reading on this very topic. Turns out it wasn't such a crazy thought after all. I'll share this research with you later.
(PAUSE)
I believe this tumor was allowed by God to grow for many years until June 6th, 2009 when I would randomly hit my head causing a grand-mal seizure, leading me to discover a low-grade tumor on June 7th, 2009.
I believe that my tumor was either partially or totally created and grown by the stress I have in my life over repeatedly refusing God's calling for my life. I am totally cool with that. I probably feel the same way Jonah felt about the whale. We should be thankful for anything that encourages us to heavily reconsider our purpose in life. Even suffering.
I believe that God's timing is perfect. This discovery happened at a specific point in my life:
1. To be young enough, yet wise enough to get over myself, quit wasting time and start doing what I was created to do.
2. Alongside point #1, use this time that a slow-growing tumor allows me to experiment with a variety of conventional and alternative medicines to heal this tumor, allowing as many days as possible to accomplish what God has called me to do.
I believe that God has called me to communicate with you directly, not always through other people. Knowing my ignorance and weakness to heed this calling, He allowed / designed a tumor to be the significant change-agent and finally grab my attention to help me realize this.
I believe the placement of this tumor directly within the speech comprehension and creation areas of my brain is God's not-so-subtle way of essentially saying, 'Use it or Lose it'.
I believe there are many people out there who are avoiding God and His calling for their life. In fact, you might feel that you are dying on the inside to do something about it, to finally start listening, to make a jump. I believe you can do it. When you do it, write me and let me know.
I believe that with God's guidance, anything I can say or write that helps heal you, will play a major role in how God heals me.
So I'll keep on writing here as long as God keeps placing things on my heart to say. But maybe you have a group of people who need to hear this story in person. I'll show up. I don't know any details. I'm sure we can figure them out together. I truly don't know what happens next, but in the words of Isaiah, I humbly say, "Here am I, send me."
