Please Don’t Take Things For Granted

We often learn key life lessons far too late:

Yes it is not much more than a cliché, but we do it all the time: we DO take things for granted. Worse yet, we take people for granted. Yesterday I was thinking about funerals, and how so many nice things are said about the deceased during the service. I wondered how many of these nice things were said about them and to them while they were still alive!

One need not be a Christian of course to think in these terms. Back in 1970 Joni Mitchell had this memorable line in her song Big Yellow Taxi: “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone?” If you want a refresher on what that tune from over a half century ago sounds like, you can check it out here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94bdMSCdw20

Yes, life is like that. We should not be taking things and people for granted. This is becoming so much more real for me of late, and that for several reasons. I turned 70 this year, so I am no spring chicken anymore. As you age you tend to spend more time reflecting on what went before than what lies ahead. You start realising that your days really are numbered, and you better make the most of the time you have left. And you reflect on past mistakes and shortcomings more.

Another reason for all this is the fact that my wife is dying. Yes, we are all dying, from the moment we were born. But not everyone reaches their threescore and ten. Some die prematurely because of various illnesses – including that dreaded scourge, cancer.

Pardon a bit of personal info here, but… Because hers is one of the rarest, harshest, most aggressive and least likely to be cured but only treated cancers, the initial time frame we were given (12-18 months) seems to be far too optimistic. It seems each week some new bit of horror news hits us. Recent CT scan showed even more growths and spreads, despite a year now of surgeries, radiation and chemo.

There was even a small spot found on her brain. So tomorrow she goes to another hospital to do an MRI to try to determine more accurately just how much cancer there is, and where it has now spread to. As I have said before, if you do not know what the word “metastasis” is, consider yourself incredibly blessed.

So obviously I now reflect a lot (as I sit alone in my empty house) about how good or bad of a husband I have been. It is mostly the latter it seems to me. There is so much I could have done better. So many wasted opportunities. So much self-centredness. So much focus on things that did not really matter.

The only good thing I suppose about her extended hospital stays is they are preparing me for the time when she never comes back home. Jilly dog and Possum cat help of course – and God is the ultimate comforter. He knows all about our pain and suffering. He is not distant and aloof. He suffers with us.

What does it take to wake us up?

Sadly it is often the case – for Christians just as much as non-Christians – that it takes some mega-tragedy or crisis or emergency to wake us up and remind us of the things that really matter. For example, some four or five years ago I often prayed that God would do something to radically wake us all up. I am sure many other believers prayed the same.

The West was (and still is) in such a downward spiral and things were getting so bad, that something massive was needed to snap us out of our stupor and get us to wake up to what really is worthwhile in life. Of course then Covid came along, and all that went with it – lockdown mania, statist overkill, mandatory medicine and health fascism.

I certainly did not have in mind a global pandemic when I prayed those prayers, but that was certainly one way to hopefully get our attention and to get us to consider what is really important. But whether something even that hardcore really woke up the masses is a moot point. Many did not like going through it all, but many are now just going back to business as usual.

And a personal health crisis can and should also act as a major wake up call. When you or a loved one are told that you are going through a terminal illness, that should shake off the blinders and bring us back to reality real fast. Then you really begin to realise how much you did in fact take things for granted.

Empathy

Biblical Christians know that suffering is not foreign to their life, just as it was not foreign to God’s life. Our Saviour is known as the “suffering servant”. God fully entered into our world and suffered greatly on our behalf so that he could deal with the alienation that exists between God and man.

As I have said before, believers need to develop a theology of suffering. Scripture talks about this matter over and over again. See more on this here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2021/05/08/needed-a-theology-of-suffering/

There are actually many important benefits to suffering. If properly responded to, one thing suffering often can result in is this: it helps us to understand and relate to what others are going through. The Apostle Paul for example spoke about this in 2 Corinthians 1:3-7:

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.

I don’t know about you, but for most of my life I have been thick as a brick. Sure, I knew in my head all the right biblical and theological material on suffering, and how I am to weep with those who weep, and so on. But for most of my life I may have KNOWN the right things about this, but there was little real empathy and sympathy.

In case you are wondering about the two terms and how they might differ, one online dictionary says this: “In general, sympathy is when you share the feelings of another; empathy is when you understand the feelings of another but do not necessarily share them.”

My current bout of suffering (mental, emotional, psychological and spiritual – while my wife has all that, plus the physical pain) has certainly led to an increase in both. I now relate a whole lot more to those who are going through similar things. Indeed, I am now ready to want to give a big hug to anyone who says they are experiencing things like cancer. My capacity to care and show love and concern for others has ramped up a fair bit as I have gone through this very difficult year.

And this brings me back to my opening thoughts. We can repeat the words of Joni again: “Don’t it always seem to go that you don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone?” My wife will soon be gone – barring a miracle. And God is able to do a miracle if it is his will. But if it is getting close for her to go home, that too is a grace of God.

Same with me. Will I live to be 80 or 90 or more? Beats me. But as I age, I am learning that there is so much I need to stop taking for granted. And it would be great if we could get young people to think in these terms. I sure did not while I was in my 20s or 30s or 40s, etc.

If I could patent something and bottle it and make it available to young people to help them see how quickly their lives will be over, and how many stupid things we put all our emphasis and care into, it would be one of the greatest medicines we could have.

Sure, Scripture speaks to this all this time. Consider just one passage: “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12). It is one thing to read this – even a hundred times. It is quite another to let it sink deep into our souls.

[1492 words]

25 Replies to “Please Don’t Take Things For Granted”

  1. Oh Bill, you have in this post shown us all how our theology is lacking, and how deficient we all are in how our thoughts of God in the person of Jesus is so very much needed in our personal relationships.
    My thoughts and prayers are with you as you travel this difficult time.
    Thank you for sharing your thoughts and pain, and strength of faith through the valley of the shadow of death, much love to you both….

  2. Bill – what you have written couldn’t have been easy. Many of us sympathise and empathise with you.

    Two brief comments in relation to different parts of your post:

    a metrical version of Psalm 119:71 says, ‘Affliction has been for my profit, for through it I learned your commands’;

    an OutreachMedia poster has a picture of a long-retired-from-work golfer dead at the 18th green, and the question, ‘So, what’s your POST-retirement plan?’

    Grace and peace to you and your wife.

  3. Bill,
    I cannot even imagine the torment that you are enduring. I suppose that with the initial diagnosis a clock is set ticking down to zero but the ticks speed up and slow down with each progressive diagnosis yet you do not know how many ticks are actually left. Each MRI or scan or whatever could be like that scene in movies where you think the bomb has been defused only to find the timer accelerates even faster towards 0:00.
    I was not even allowed the benefit of knowing that my brother was diagnosed with a form of cancer that was a death sentence. He had as little as 3 months left to live. He had been buried for more than 3 months before I was informed. Opportunities for a deeper relationship were stolen from me. Even seeing or hearing his name strikes at my heart now. Never mind seeing his picture.
    Your situation reminds me of James Goll and the agony he endured during his wife’s cancer.
    https://godtv.com/breakthrough-process-james-goll/
    Curiously, do we accept the inevitability of it or do we expend all our energies in prayer & treatments at the expense of not achieving anything else in this life whilst we battle it (and who indeed is doing the battling?)? What is this teaching us? Of course, there is always the why me and not some criminal/murderer who is more deserving of death by this means? Many many more things flood the mind.
    I feel inadequate about offering any cheer but please continue the fight you have been called to. To be side-tracked by all this can be a slippery slope.
    Joshua 1:9 “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” NASB (1995)

  4. Thank you for sharing the latest on your situation. It must be so hard to go through such suffering with your lovely wife and to share in her sufferings as well as the setbacks. May God comfort you both and provide the best nursing and medical care possible and help you both endure this time and find blessings on the way. May God carry you through hard times knowing he will one day provide a new home where there is no more pain, suffering or sorrow for the former things will pass away.
    with thoughts and prayer, Gail

  5. Yes, yes, and yes. I hear our Lord speaking in this. I suffered after my wonderful husband’s passing for taking so much for granted. I pray many will read this and take it to heart. I still believe in miracles. I am praying for you and Averil.

  6. Thank you so much Bill for your courageously sharing of your most treasured gift, your wife, partner in all aspect of life, and her suffering and struggles.

    If I may, don’t please be too harsh in pondering God’s mighty will, as we won’t fully understand until we are re-united in Heaven, one day(hopefully soon).

    Will continue to uphold you both and your family, through prayers.

    Cheers and Blessings

    Eric Hansen

  7. Thank you Bill. Quite timely. Recently over the holidays I read Job from start to finish. Where he says naked I came into this world and naked I will leave it, left an impression. Suffering and loss can’t be avoided.

  8. We are so sorry to learn this news of your wife, You both are in our prayers,

  9. Bill – I have been (…almost) daily checking in on Culture Watch, for a few years. The book reviews, quiet exegesis and the culture war against our time, modernity and all its anti-Christian attitude in most people’s “questions”

    In this difficult time – with your wife’s situation – you “prove” that Christ’s life is not just a pretense. Here you are an example and a Hero….!!

  10. This is one of the sort of article I would not want to understand. But I do too well.

    I am coming on two years that I lost the good woman who was by my side for 48 years. It was not cancer, but something else that I watched coming for a long time. I remember her well every day. The days can be happy and sad at the same time.

    You pray for me and I will pray for you.

  11. Bill, I’m asking for God’s comfort for you both through this. Thank you for your wise and valuable words.

  12. Bill, I’ve read you off and on for some years now but hadn’t read you lately and am now reading what your going through.
    I went through this with my wife.
    Not too many years after we were married my wife contracted her first cancer, was declared to be in remission but relapsed 18 months later.
    Then a third cancer a few years later, then lung failure from all the harsh chemotherapy and radiation treatments, then she passed into His Presence about 18 months after that.
    She was 63.
    It was and still is devastating to think back on it all.
    She was very faithful and courageous.
    I’m struggle to this day to be as faithful and courageous about all of it.
    Because of all of this we could never have children and I’m now alone, other than my Bulldogs until they died around the time she passed, now a couple Boston Terriers.
    Yes, great company, but I’m left to ponder the quality the kind of husband I was, and I cone up short thinking about what I should AND COULD have done better.
    We’re told in all the grief counseling and advice not to to this, think back, but when your alone it’s almost impossible NOT to think back.
    So, I SO feel for you Bill.
    My wife and I only had 23 years together, and she/we spent half those years fighting for her life.
    Come Lord Jesus, please PLEASE COME QUICKLY that we may see you face to face, be finally conformed to YOU and be delivered from our besetting sins and weaknesses, tears, illnesses, and all that is still the reality of this fallen world.

    Gary

  13. Very, very sorry to hear about your wife.

    BTW, I see it seems to be from Merriam-Webster that you got the empathy vs. sympathy distinction. Though they are usually a trustworthy source, they seem not to be here. Several of their examples don’t match up with their definitions, nor do other they match the definitions of other sources.

    The distinction as I was taught it (and my husband was taught this one too) is that “empathy” describes feeling for someone who is experiencing something you yourself have experienced. For instance, I lost my dad when I was a teenager, so I can empathize with someone losing a parent young; since I haven’t lost a spouse, I can have sympathy for someone experiencing that loss, but not empathy. Others define “sympathy” as being rather shallow (I don’t personally think that’s a fair understanding), but “empathy” as being a deeper feeling for the other person. Either way, whether empathy includes having personally experienced this pain, empathy is a deep entering in.

    However they are defined, both “sympathy” and “empathy” are having some sort of emotional reaction to another’s pain or sorrow.

  14. Oh Bill & Averil – what challenging times. How we long for the day when death will be no more. Abba Father – May Your Will be Done; Jesus – Greatest Healer of All – We expectantly await Your Miracle; Beautiful Holy Spirit – continue encourage, inspire, empower this Blessed Couple – Bill & Averil. We love you Lord, We give YOU all the Glory, Honour & Praise.

  15. I understand. My wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s at 57. She’s now 64 and in a nursing home. The loneliness is crushing. I’ve written in my diary, why couldn’t we have sinned less and loved more?

    Navigating grief is a solitary journey, even with good friends who I know love and care for me.

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