Is Disease ‘Courageous”?
Is simply being diagnosed with a life-threatening disease qualify one as “brave” or “courageous”?
Today, let’s explore if people who contract a disease are more courageous than those of us who haven’t yet. If so, why aren’t we handing out trophies so they have SOMETHING to show for it!
How come every time we hear about someone getting a devastating disease we always feel obligated to say “They are fighting a courageous battle”? I Don’t mean to be insensitive but how are you being courageous simply by being diagnosed with a disease? The fact that you are searching for a cure and trying to remain optimistic while under dire circumstances isn’t necessarily courageous, it’s called “What else would I do, I’m not dead yet, what are my options doc you’re the expert. Crap, if I get cancer and the doctor said the cure was to tie three chickens together by the tail and hang them around your neck while playing the flugelhorn through your nose… I’m on it! I’m not courageous, I’m desperate! Sounds to me more like I got nothing to lose!
I mean if you get diagnosed with a life- threatening disease you really don’t have a whole heck of a lot of options do you? Outside of joining the French foreign legion or taking up lion taming as a hobby between chemo there really isn’t anything courageous to DO while you’re trying to get healed! Courageous is the wrong word I think. Hope maybe or remaining upbeat in seeking a cure is the more accurate term I would guess and the only admirable trait is you don’t quit trying until the end, because whatever the outcome it’s out of your control. I don’t know of anyone whose hasn’t somewhere been affected by that most ruthless of diseases cancer.
Cancer, like other residues of the fall is one of many devastating byproducts of this cursed earth. For some it will become terminal. But the truth of life is the moment you are conceived you are terminally ill. The moment you are alive at conception, you are stricken with the ultimate killer disease that is never cured, mortality. The truth is, if we admit it to ourselves, this “courageous battle” thing.. is actually the rest of us healthy folks thinking if we praise the one with cancer maybe we won’t get it. It’s really those spared this horror often trying to make sense of the senseless. Praising the disease stricken can almost be like a subconscious neo-talisman as though we are speaking to the spirit world, “Hey look at me, I’m praising this person that has something I don’t want, does that mean I get a pass please? I mean look how sympathetic I’m behaving”!
We feel sorry for cancer victims as we should and think heaping accolades on them somehow make the rest of us invulnerable to it happening to us. The truth is every day you are alive is one day closer to you being dead. It seems if we all saw life as a terminal illness it would actually give us as humans the truth perspective we could all live by. Now I am sure some of you watching this might be tempted to confuse my words as insensitive to people suffering this indignity as we speak. But here is what I’m getting at, if being told we’re dying suddenly makes people courageous, and since we are all dying, then aren’t we all potentially given the opportunity to be leading courageous lives? That is if courage means trying to be positive and inspiring to others no matter what state we find ourselves? Disease is just a rude awakening to the fact that we are always seeking the winning outcome to a game that is already rigged.
Faith to me is courageous. I don’t get to see God like I see humans. I don’t communicate, understand or feel completely at ease with the way God interacts in my life. I am told by my faith to HAVE faith in God in order to please Him. As a matter of fact faith is the only way to please God by His own words.
So just to be clear to anyone out there that believes that I don’t know what it’s like to have a loved one get cancer I should inform you my dad died of it. The cancer that ate his brain and killed an otherwise healthy man of 59 who was gone within 6 months of diagnosis was cruel and evil and horrific. It robbed him of his speech, motors-skills and ability to think clearly and to communicate. If you are watching this episode right now and happen to be battling cancer or have a loved one in that situation I have nothing but empathy for you and if you leave your name in the comments I’ll be happy to say a prayer for you as well!
I hate cancer. BUT, it is real. Death is real. Dying is real and there is nothing particularly courageous about it since we don’t have a choice to avoid it. Courage is throwing yourself on a grenade to save your squad when you didn’t have too. Dying for others when you could have survived ….that’s courageous. Death is handed to us whether we like it or not. Death is leaving this earth too soon without your consent.
It’s coming though. Everyone watching this right now will be dead within a hundred years, and most of you long before that including me, though I don’t know how God is going to get anything accomplished when I’m gone. Oh well, He’s God. He probably has a plan B.
Here’s what I want you to think about this week: True courage comes with how you LIVE your life to inspire others. How you die is an extension of this and can be inspiring as well but what causes your death isn’t your choice. It is thrust upon you. If you have lived well, if you humbled yourself before the Creator and gave His son your life on earth that you don’t get to keep anyways… then dying is a comfort, a reward, for completing the journey. It’s literally the happy ending to your unique novel.
So, for all of you who have lost loved ones too soon, and let’s face it no matter when it comes it’s too soon, I say I am so sorry for your loss because the pain sticks to the living, the dead are finally free of it. If you’re waiting to be dying to start living courageously perhaps you’re missing your best opportunity to inspire and assist others in showing just how wonderful life can be if you choose the attitude of gratefulness no matter what life throws your way. Because as you get older you will learn..if your wise… dying just isn’t courageous…living is.
Be sure to subscribe to Brad Stine Has Issues’ YouTube Channel so that you don’t miss a moment of Brad’s shenanigans both in front of and behind the scenes!
Check in with Christian Podcast Central for more incredible content like this every day!