Numbering My Days to Make Them Count

(June 16, 2024)

Dear Journal.

I’ve got an announcement to make. A good friend of mine has offered to compile my journal posts, clean up the formatting, and then collect the posts into three month/quarterly sections.

This organizer-type friend shall remain nameless for the time being so as to relieve him from any pressure, should this prove even more monumental than realized. But due to“popular demand” for something like this, he has offered to try.

This could be a first step toward making this massive collection of journal posts (800 posts, totaling 400,000 to 500,000 words, about scores of topics about my life with cancer) more accessible to people. Because it is so massive a task, there is no guarantee that it will be completed any time soon. So if it interests you, you may want to pray for my friend to have all kinds of vision, energy, and endurance—if it is the Lord’s will.

A Brief History of My Journal

For those who are unaware of the history here’s an early summary.

I was diagnosed with Stage Four prostate cancer in May, 2022, and was given a grim prognosis of less than 40 months at that time. It was, according to my doctors’ professional opinions, “not your ordinary prostate cancer”; being a “Highly Aggressive” and “High Grade” cancer that would not give me very long to live. 

God always has something to say about that, of course—and as of this moment (June, 2024) it seems like God is extending my life longer than first estimated, although the cancer is still there, and—unless God heals me—the life-altering treatments will be needed for as long as I live. So we have to deal with what is, and find God in the midst of it all.

People’s response (to my ordeal) has been so full of loving concern that a means to keep people informed of what God is doing seemed appropriate. And so the journal, which I called “Thou Art the Potter: Faith Reflections from a Cancer Oven”, was born. Soon after I added the tag line (based on Psalm 90:12): “Numbering my days to make them count”, to define my motive. I started a journal for thousands of eyes to read to make my apparently declining days count for something.

The name of the Journal is stolen from an old hymn and is based on the comforting conviction of an ancient man of God— “But now o LORD, you are our Father. We are the clay, and you are the Potter. We are all the work of your hand” (Isa. 64:8)

My journal began as a way of keeping an account of my cancer battle, and of communicating with my congregation (and others) along the way.  I’ve wanted to chronicle God’s dealings with me while in the “shadowlands” (to borrow from C.S. Lewis) so that people might see into (and look back on), what God has done.

Since then, many have felt that the Lord was giving me a rare opportunity to offer people an extended view into real human suffering and God’s grace, while still inside the furnace. And so it has begun to feel like a stewardship of truth entrusted to me by the Lord.

And much to my surprise, by current estimates (as of June, 2024) some 130,000+ visits have been made to my Facebook and Caring Bridge sites. Thank you so very much for reading and praying. 

Here are a few clarifications about my “Thou Art the Potter” journal:

—it’s a couple-hour-a-day labor of love—offered to my God and for people whom it may help.

—It is not a book but a collection of individual daily reflections.

—It is not polished or professionally edited.

—I have no outline of topics for the journal, but almost always express what the Lord has given in the last day or two.

—I don’t worry about repetition, since in very long trials God’s truth needs to be revisited time and again.

—I offer real and real-time updates; which means that the journal may be best read that way, if folks want an up-to-the-minute awareness of what God is saying to Tim today (or this week).

—Obviously, the last chapter isn’t written yet. Nobody—and that includes me—knows how this story ends, or whether I finish well, or not. The journal is a cliff-hanger. That’s the risk in doing what I’m doing. I have little to no idea how hard this cancer experience is going to get. And nobody knows when or how it all turns out. And I’m counting on God to see me through.

—In any case, my aim is to chronicle my cancer journey as seen through my eyes, my ignorance, my fears, my joys, and my faith for as long as God gives me strength.

My hope simply, is to bless folks by writing a cancer journal that faithfully chronicles my big “C” (Christ) over little “c’ (cancer) experience—to the glory and praise of his grace. 

And my friend’s offer to try to organize and neaten up my entries may help that goal along. God-willing and enabling.