One of my egg customers invited me into a small prayer group when our daughter was diagnosed. The prayer group recently shared that a friend’s father had been diagnosed with cancer. I’m sure you, someone you love or someone you know has been diagnosed with cancer. And I’m equally certain you are acutely aware of the deep anxiety that accompanies diagnosis.

I took a moment to write out some encouragement for the friend. This slightly edited version may serve to encourage you as well.

My name is Chris Jordan. My daughter has a rare form of cancer but an excellent prognosis. We spend a lot of time in Children’s hospital and meet a large number of children and families. We seek to counsel and comfort them as we also seek counsel and comfort. In part, this is because the apostle Paul didn’t ask God why he was in prison. He asked God what he should do while he was in prison. Then he went to work.

I don’t know why my beautiful daughter has cancer. That’s really none of my business. I have seen a lot of children and whole families in pain in Children’s. It is tempting for me to ask God “Why?” But that is not what I need to do.

I don’t need to seek answers. I need to seek closeness with God.

And I am not alone in this need.

So I go out of my way to introduce myself to parents I run into. My daughter takes her dance partner (her IV stand) with her to deliver cards to other kids on the floor and invites them to play video games with her. We seek out opportunities in the elevator and hallway to pray for or pray with desperate parents or just to listen to them talk. And sometimes we all really, really need to talk.

Listen, I know how you feel. I know what you are going through. And I want to encourage you, as I encourage other families I meet, not to ask God “Why?” It doesn’t matter why. Asking Why makes you a victim. You are not a victim. You are a treasure and were created for a purpose. It only matters what you do. And what you need to do is pray. Ask.

Jesus didn’t walk around randomly healing the blind. In Matthew 20:32-33 Jesus waited for the blind men to ask. In Matthew 9:20 the woman reached out to touch Jesus. She had to reach out! In Matthew 8:8 the centurion asked Jesus for a simple word.

God is infinitely larger than your largest problem. Do you believe that? But you have to ask, just as Moses had to hold his arms out and the widow had to pour the oil. We have to ask. We have to pray. We have to draw close to the Lord and, I strongly suggest, PRAISE HIM for our time of need…a time that reminds us to seek Him out. A time that reminds us to seek his strength and remember that the angel of the lord encamps around and delivers us! Great is the Lord and Greatly to be Praised! Even if, like David, we don’t always feel it and we have to give ourselves a pep talk. Bless the Lord, Oh my soul! And all that is within me praise his holy name!

Please don’t waste your time seeking answers. Desperate times call for desperate measures. There is no more desperate act than praying hard. (This is a note I made in my prayer journal as I was recently reading The Circle Maker.)

One more thing. In Genesis 1:3 God spoke light into a dark place. I have been to dark places. In fact, I have been to dark places trying to balance my daughter’s illness, my job, my marriage, my farm…The light of the word of God brought me back to the path. Lean on the word of God now.

Feel free to reach out to us anytime.

Chris Jordan

Now let’s be real. We are friends here, you and I. Let me be completely honest with you. I wrote that for myself as much as for anyone else.

On Friday I was talking with my boss and discussing the issues I was facing that day. I needed to replace a mission-critical server and my daughter needed a blood transfusion. When discussing the issue with the server I was pacing, moving my hands excitedly and clearly expressing my anxiety. But when discussing my daughter I was sitting calmly on a chair and speaking matter-of-factly.  My boss pointed this out to me. He was concerned that I was worked up about the wrong thing.

Do you know how much time I have spent praying about that server? Very little.

Do you know how much time I have spent praying about my daughter?

Heck, I have hundreds, if not, thousands of people praying for my daughter. I kinda think that’s covered. But the server is unprotected. So I got a little worked up on Friday.

Yes, I am extremely concerned about my little girl but somehow, it is different. Most of the time.

Most of the time.

But some of the time? Well, I think it is understandable that some of the time I go to pieces. Sometimes I cry. Sometimes I wonder why my little girl got sick. Sometimes I worry about her future. She will be screened for cancer at regular intervals for the rest of her life. Why? Because there is a good chance this cancer will return or another cancer will appear. Or she will suffer side-effects of the drugs used to beat her cancer…like heart failure. What will her medical expenses be in 10 years?

Do you see how easy it is? We are facing real problems. But it is all a lie.

I can’t live my life in fear and anxiety. I can’t love my daughter that way. Even without cancer there is no guarantee that she will live to be 50. My job is to love and guide her. And I can’t love and guide her in the present if I’m crying about a tomorrow that hasn’t come yet…and may never arrive.

The server issue at work is resolved. No big deal. You make this thing point to that thing and do some stuff so the servers know and trust each other…blah, blah, blah. What is the worst that could happen if server replacement failed? I would probably have to put in a couple of long days. Would I lose my job? Probably not. But there are worse things than losing my job.

But I wasted a lot of emotional energy on that issue.

I have wasted a lot of emotional energy worrying about my daughter too.

So I have to remind myself. I was created for a purpose. I am not an accident. I am a treasure. I have a Father in heaven who loves me…who wants to bless me. And I need to bless Him. Bless the Lord! O my soul! Especially if I don’t feel like it today.

I have been awake since 5. The alarm clock roused me from a sound sleep. I always sleep better on cold nights. Maybe it’s the feeling of security I get from a pile of blankets pressing down on me.

By 5:45 I have finally gotten myself dressed, got the coffee brewing and have prodded myself to go outside. I beat the sun today. Point for me.

The moon provides the majority of the illumination as I begin my work. I have a busy morning so I moved the chicken house last night. This morning I just need to stand up their fence and fill their drinker.

The white fence posts are barely visible in the dim light. As I pick up each one I am increasingly covered in cold dew. My long sleeved t-shirt and hoodie are not quite enough. But it has to be done. A little after 6 Julie joins me and we finish up just before the sun rises.

We had a rough week on the farm. It seems so much of what we do is just a struggle to keep things alive. I often write about my struggle to express my love to Julie instead of just nagging her to death. When your crying wife says to you, “Nothing is ever good enough for you!”….well, those are the moments you should just shut your mouth and become a little more introspective.

When things go wrong I spend a lot of time reviewing what happened. What went wrong? How can I avoid it going forward? I really want to explore it from all angles, find a solution and bring it to fruition. You might say I dwell on things.

I kicked myself for days when a goat named Shivers died. our nanny goat gave birth to quadruplets including Shivers. We were new at goats and livestock and were just glad to have 16 hooves on the ground, not knowing we needed to wait to see if all 4 could latch on. Not even imaging that we might be better off raising them on a bottle. Never suspecting a massive storm was going to kick up in the night. In the morning there were two baby goats latched on, one laying dead at the edge of the shelter and poor Shivers…shivering…cold, wet and alone. From that moment we were bottle-feeding goats. It wasn’t easy. At all. But with some help from some experienced friends (who must have thought we were idiots (we were (are))) we got them drinking from bottles. But Shivers never ate much. I made her a little sweater from the sleeve of a sweatshirt and we fought with her for a week trying to keep her alive. We even tried tube feeding her. But we failed. She missed the colostrum, got off to a bad start and that was that. Wasted effort.

Oh, the things I would do differently today! Geez. But I didn’t know.

There is an endless supply of things I don’t know. Things I can’t know…but maybe should. Do you know what this is?

It is White Snakeroot. It is death incarnate and this week it killed a bull calf. I had no idea it was even out there. Acres and acres of it. Anywhere the canopy covers and mowers can’t mow. Steep hill sides and creek banks are covered with it. And I had no idea. The kids and Julie and I now spend our evenings pulling it up by the root and making piles for burning. Bushels and bushels of this stuff. You just would not believe. But it gets worse.

The cows rarely eat it. If they do it’s just a nibble here or there. How do I know? Because I went through the paddocks they have grazed over the last 10 days or so. The grazing pattern is clear. Except for one day. One paddock. One place I left the herd a little too long.

This morning, instead of dwelling on my many failings as a husband and father I was thinking about my calf Curly. I didn’t know I had snakeroot. I didn’t mean to leave them so long, I just gauged the forage incorrectly. And I found Curly laying on his side in a ravine. My mistake. My fault. My responsibility. My loss.

We do everything we can to protect out livestock but it doesn’t always work out. And it isn’t always our fault. But it is always our loss.

This farming stuff can be hard. But I can’t dwell on the bad things.

This morning my fourth child will be baptized at our church and I get to baptize her. She need no longer to fear death. No rainstorm, no random weed, no enemy has a hold on her eternal life. She is free. Born twice to die once. It’s not just another day of working to hold death at bay for a little while longer. This is a day of celebration.

We live in a fallen world, besieged by an enemy who seeks to kill, steal and destroy. It is unfortunate that we lost a calf this week but we will work through it. I can’t dwell on that small loss…letting the enemy steal my joy. I live a blessed life. I get to live on a farm with hills and trees and grass and ponds and streams and chickens and pigs and cows and milk and honey. My children are strong and happy and we have planted the Word of God in their hearts. I have every reason to rejoice!

So I stand. Watching the light grow in the sky and wrestling with my thoughts. Why am I in such a funk? David must have felt this way when he wrote “Bless the Lord, O my soul!” That’s a strange way to talk to oneself. He must have been in a funk too…giving himself a pep talk. “All that is within me bless His holy name!” He has to be rooting for himself.

This morning I spent time reflecting on where I spend my reflection time. My hands were busy and my mind was active. But neither were always productive.

What are you dwelling on? It is easy to focus on your faults…to blame and berate yourself endlessly. Isn’t it better to remember that the sun is rising? That today is a new day? That THIS is the day the Lord has made and we will rejoice and be glad in it. Even if we’re just trying to talk ourselves into it, isn’t it better to talk yourself into life? The sun is rising. My daughter is being baptized today. Death has no hold on her. I will rejoice.

But I will also stay busy pulling white snakeroot in the evenings.