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As I sat on a plane heading to New York for the Grassroots Non-Conference, a woman a few rows in front of me asked for a coke and the flight attended immediately ran to the back and came back with her request. She quickly took a sip and then yelled “I asked for diet coke! What, are you trying to kill me!” Though the woman had clearly not indicated that the coke be diet, the flight attendant ran back and got her another cup full of diet coke. He apologized and traded the cokes with the woman. She then began to rant about the non-diet coke like it was the end of the world. She accused the flight attendant of trying to ruin her health and she just spewed out all sort of word vomit. Maybe 15 minutes later she ran out of insults and the flight attendant apologized again and then walked away. Everything in me wanted to say “Hey lady stop complaining about getting the wrong death beverage it all gives you cancer anyways” and then give her a nice sputum sample to make my point.
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Have a little perspective, this woman made a huge deal about something so small and insignificant. The fact is diet or not the coke will kill you. Maybe if she was in my shoes she would have been a little more thoughtful about what she complains about.
In light of this weekend’s Grassroots gathering, I thought a lot about perspective and how mine has drastically shifted. BC (before cancer) I did not think much of mortality or about the fact that we are not guaranteed tomorrow. I knew it was true but I never really let it sink in. I spent a majority of my time thinking creatively of new content for work and to be financially responsible and pay off student loans as quickly as possible.
This weekend many people asked me what my latest project are, I wanted to say “Fighting Cancer” but the part of me that wants everything to be normal again spoke for me and told them all about the new Shout Out podcasts coming out soon and the Journeys of Faith that we have, or the possible new Haf-Torah Portion for Parsha in 60 Seconds, or the Street Witness videos from San Francisco, or the campaign videos that were made for ingathering, or Jhan Moskowitz’s new/old study on Chronicles that was just released. There are so many projects that I wish were my main priority but now in survival mode It was hard to speak of all of these things with much enthusiasm as before. (By the way if you want to see my work, click the links on the project title to see.) Side note one of the projects I am most excited about is called the Network Evangelism Team and if you are a strong believer in Jesus and want to share your faith please check it out and consider trying it out.
The fact is that it has crossed my mind several times now that I might not survive and if that is the case what are the most important things I want to do before that happens. I spent a lot of time praying about this throughout this weekend and I believe my greatest desire through all this is that God would awaken those who have no faith or have walked away from faith and that God would bring them home. I feel that in the last few years the world has consumed several of my very close friends and I have felt so burdened to see their homecoming. Nothing is impossible for the God of the universe and there is absolutely no mess we can get ourselves in that God can’t save us from.
So how has my perspective changed? Well, Jesus is carrying all my heavy bags so you won’t find me sweating the small stuff as I completely trust God to be my strength and even though my journey will be full of heavy, risky, scary times, our God is stronger.
How has God been speaking to you? Please tell me in the comments.
Be Blessed
Sean Trank
P.S. Tomorrow I will be having my second bronchoscopy, please pray for peace as I go in.
Image may be NSFW.
Clik here to view.
Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
