Dear Dad: Faith Reflections from a Cancer Oven (#3)
[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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Dear Dad
From June 27, 2022
Dear Dad,
I thought about you recently. It was only seconds after I found out that I had Stage Four cancer. I know you’ve been gone for seventeen years, but it’s wild how my life still seems to be mapping onto yours! Did we ever talk about how my journey has followed yours as far back as my memory goes? It really did start way back when.
I’m not sure that I can actually remember anymore when I was five—at least not in a direct-line memory kind of way. But I can remember when I could remember that I could remember that I was five. And remembering back through the sequence of younger Tim Shoreys, all the way back to five-year-old Timmie, as you and Mom would have called me, I know that there were three things that I wanted to be when he grew up: a husband, a father, and a pastor.
And as you know, Dad, by the time I was twentythree I was all three—and have been ever since. Which makes me married for forty-four years, Dad for forty-three years, and pastor for forty years. How did that happen? The truth is, Dad, that you did it to me!
I figured out a long time ago that this somewhat unusual sense of calling from God was just that; a calling. But it was something else, too, Dad. It was the spiritual harvest of a deep, loving, life-shaping respect for you. For you were all three of these: a loving husband, a great father, and a faithful church-planting pastor—and that life became a template for mine; however imperfect my imitation may be. I so loved and admired you that I wanted to be everything you were. Dad, your image is stamped all over me.
And now it looks like I’m like you in another way. I’m sure you’ve figured out why you came to mind when I got my Stage Four diagnosis. After all, you had your own Stage Four diagnosis that kicked off your own ten-year battle with the very same cancer I have, a battle that eventually took your life. This is one way I wish that I was not like you. But I am.
Dad, I’ll admit that it was pretty sobering to make this connection. I’ve got the same cancer that took you from us, only I got it ten years earlier than you did. I’m not being morbid here or overly negative. The truth is, that cancer didn’t take your life. Nor will it take mine. You taught me better than that! You’re the one who taught me that life and death are in the hand of our Heavenly Father—the One who does all things right! But still, the connection is there. I’ve got what you had.
Now here’s how I hope it goes from here, Dad. For however long I have this cancer I hope I have it with as much grace, courage, hope, and love as you had it. Dad, I remember thinking when you died: “My dad didn’t just teach me how to live; he showed me how to die—and I hope I do this for those after me.”
Not that I’m thinking about dying any time soon. I’m just saying that however this journey goes, I want to be the model of faith—both in living and in dying—that you were for me.
So, Dad, it looks like both my younger life and my later years are going to map onto yours with crazy similarity—even in ways I’d rather not. But the truth of the old hymn that I think you taught me is good enough for me: “whatever my God ordains is right”! I sure do hope and pray that I can face whatever that whatever is with as much grace as you did.
By the way, Dad, I’ve got the biggie diagnostic test tomorrow. It’ll tell me how far my cancer has advanced into all the tiny nooks and crannies of my body. What I’m praying is that they will be stunned when they turn that mega-machine on to take pictures of my insides; stunned to discover not only that my cancer has not advanced, but that, by a miracle of our God, it has gone into complete and utter retreat—right into non-existence.
Whatever happens Dad, I still want to be like you when I grow up. And whatever happens, I am—
Your loving and eternally indebted son,
Tim (or Timmie, if you’d prefer)
* You can read all of the posts in this series here.
Tim Shorey is married to Gayline, his wife of 44 years, and has six grown children and 13 grandchildren. In his 41st year of pastoral ministry, he helps lead Risen Hope Church, in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Among his books are Respect the Image: Reflecting Human Worth in How We Listen and Talk; 30/30 Hindsight: 30 Reflections on a 30-Year Headache; and his recently released, award-winning An ABC Prayer to Jesus: Praise for Hearts Both Young and Old. To find out more, visit timothyshorey.com.