Day by Day by Day: Faith Reflections from a Cancer Oven (#10)
[A note from our Managing Editor: Tim Shorey, pastor and author, is one of our Gospel-Centered Discipleship staff writers. Tim is also currently battling stage 4 prostate cancer. On Facebook and CaringBridge, he’s writing about his journey. We’re including some of his posts in a series on our website called “The Potter’s Clay: Faith Reflections from a Cancer Oven.” To preserve the feel of a daily journal rather than a published work, we have chosen not to submit these reflections to a rigorous editing process.]
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Day by Day by Day
February 12, 2023
We just got a new clock—both to tell time and to tell a story. Now hanging on our kitchenette wall, it sports nice colors, the necessary numbers, and a simple message: T & G SHOREY / EST 1978 / DAY BY DAY.
We bought this new clock, in part because we wanted something unique to us, and in part to remind us to stay committed to doing life the way we nearly always have: one God-trusting, God-serving, and God-enabling day at a time. Tomorrow is not to be worried over, trusted in, or boasted of (Matt. 6:34; James 4:13–16; Pro. 27:1). In fact, as many would know, we’ve been so committed to this day by day “creed” that I sang the hymn, “Day by Day,” at our wedding, only changing the first-personal singular pronouns to plural so that it would became our song.
I bring this up today because while it remains our quest to live life one God-enabled day at a time—“trusting in God’s wise bestowment with no cause for worry or for fear” and believing that “every day the Lord himself is near us, with a special mercy for each hour” (as the hymn puts it), it feels a lot harder to do now, some 45 years after our 1978 wedding day. Even though hardships started early for us, we were young and naive enough not to feel how difficult they were or enduring they would be.
But as time goes on, I find it harder to live in the good of this biblical day-by-day principle, in part, because we know just how long, deep, and hard life’s trials can be. Day by day is not so hard. Day by day by day by day by day by day by day, facing the same trial—only more difficult by the day—demands an indescribably brutal fight for faith.
I don’t know who will be able to grasp these ramblings, but some trials are present every day which makes “How long?” and “For how many days?” the aching questions of the heart. When no day is a fully pain-free happy day, it makes it hard to just do today. And when today’s ongoing ever-present afflictions have beset you for hundreds, if not thousands of yesterdays, they have a way of making today hard, and tomorrow ominous.
The truth is that these days, even if they include great joys, have a price tag. I never have a fully good day. Take yesterday for example. Gayline and I had such a great and happy day. The day was radiantly bright and reasonably warm. So we took a relaxed drive in the country and then strolled quietly and happily in a park (even though limited by my slowness of foot and dearth of strength). Then there was the relaxed ride home, accompanied by a soundtrack of love songs we recently discovered that made us smile and feel and weep and just plain know, with hands gently held. So much fun and joyful love!
But inevitably, there come those moments every day when my pain and weariness—not to mention my fears and tears—break through the happiness and mingle intense sorrow with our joy. There come those moments when I can mask my pain no longer, and when Gayline sees through my smile to sense the pain and sorrow that accompany it all. It happened again, as nearly always, yesterday afternoon and evening, as fatigue and pain seeped into my bones.
No matter how hard I try, I cannot get through a day without me feeling the effects of my cancer and without Gayline feeling how I’m feeling those effects. Not a day goes by when we don’t actively mourn our present reality and find ourselves wishing that it would all just go away. No matter how truly happy and embracing today’s mercies we are, something will trigger us—not once or twice or three times, but a dozen.
And that makes day by day very hard. And yet, and yet, and yet: “Day by day” must remain the creed by which we live; if not hour by hour. There is no other way. If we give up this fight for day-by-day grace, we will not survive.
We already knew that. But now we have a clock to remind us to do what we already know and must recommit to every single day.
O Lord Jesus—please bestow your tender mercies for each hour of this day. For if you don’t, the day by day by day by day by day-ness of life’s sorrows will consume us with tears.
* You can read all of the posts in this series here.
Tim Shorey is married to Gayline, his wife of 45 years, and has six grown children and 14 grandchildren. After over forty years of pastoral ministry, he recently retired from Risen Hope Church, in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Among his books are Respect the Image: Reflecting Human Worth in How We Listen and Talk; The Communion Truce: How Holy Communion Addresses Our Unholy Conflicts; 30/30 Hindsight: 30 Reflections on a 30-Year Headache; his award-winning An ABC Prayer to Jesus: Praise for Hearts Both Young and Old. To find out more, visit timothyshorey.com.