Obstacles become opportunities

There will be times when you want to give up and throw everything in. Don’t. By turning challenges into opportunities, you find success you were never capable of achieving.Your ability to take calculated risks and your incurable optimism will take you to great heights. — Richard Branson

Cancer twice, a bad attitude only once

The first time Lynn Cory got cancer he developed a bad attitude. Perhaps it’s understandable, but he resented that others had a future while he was diagnosed with a particularly virulent kind of cancer.

“I got really angry and I felt really hopeless,” the 74-year-old pastor says. “I was removed from people: ‘They get to live and I didn’t get to live.’ I would see other people — friends of mine — and I would say, ‘They get to live, and I don’t get to live.’”

But he did live.

Lynn Cory and his wife jo

Between his first and second bout of cancer, he saw Sherry, a sister deeply involved in 12 Step programs. Diagnosed with breast cancer, Sherry never flinched, never wavered, and never lowered her head. She kept ministering to others.

Her funeral was packed.

Lynn felt very ashamed of his previous gloom and doom. He felt like Sherry had shown a much more Paul-like attitude. Paul said in Phil. 1:21 “To live is Christ, and to die is gain,” and Sherry lived like she believed it.

Lynn felt so ashamed that he almost wished he could have a second round of cacer to learn to have a better attitude.

“Under my breath I said I wish I had a chance to do it right,” Lynn says. “I was joking at the time, but I got that wish.”

Hi second bout with cancer was completely unrelated to the first — it was not a flare-up of the previous cancer.

Round one was diagnosed as testicular seminoma cancer, the variety that caused the removal of one testicle from cyclist Lance Armstrong. The prognosis was pretty bleak; not much chance for survival.

“It really took me out,” Lynn remembers. “I was really shocked by this. I’d never had anything life-threatening.”

The first thing he did was the wrong thing: he started reading everything he could about it, and his growing awareness depressed him even more. Death was haunting him.

Lynn Cory in the Air Force. That’s when he was exposed to Agent Orange, he says, which caused the second cancer

The next thing that happened was annoying. Everybody and his brother started giving him advice. There were home-remedies to eat or not eat certain foods. There were alternative medicine treatments. Everybody was a self-proclaimed expert, and the endless contradictory and confusing counsel irritated Lynn to no end.

Then after days of despair, he got the call from across the country. The biopsy changed the diagnosis, t wasn’t seminoma cancer and prospects for recovery were bright. Surgery and radiation did the trick.

Lynn resumed his duties as associate pastor of the San Fernando Valley Vineyard church, a post he held for 28 years.

Then, Lynn saw Sherry, “a remarkable woman. Sherry just went through the whole thing with the Lord. She was strong in the Lord the whole time. She never doubted. She was like Paul, whether in life or death, she wanted God to be glorified.” Read He Got Cancer Twice but Had Faith in God the Second Time.

It’s a new day

Start with a new hope. Bring a new faith in God. Begin with a positive outlook. Confess good over life, and not bad. Trust in God, for He loves you.

Did Spaniards cheat the Taíno of Cuba trading brass for gold?

A Taíno museum village in Cuba today.

Value is arbitrary.

Each person assigns the value he wants to whatever item. Of course, there is an international value assigned to gold and brass, and so you could argue the Spaniards took advantage of the naivete of the Taínos. But since brass was the scarce and beautiful metal for the Taínos, they were willing to trade gold for it.

Today, some people value brandname clothes. Others value attending their favorite band’s concert. Others treasure their pets and deprive them of no extravagance. And dumping boatloads of money on it is well worth it.

Some people value their family. Some people value cheating. Some people value faith in God.

Are you trading brass for gold?

Uncle wrestles shark to shore, retrieves arm

Go get it back. Fight for it.

Vance Flosenzier dashed into the water after a shark bit off his nephew’s arm in 2001 at a beach near Pensacola, Florida. He grabbed the 7-foot bull shark by its tail and hauled the wrangling monster to shore. There, a ranger shot the shark in the head and paramedics extracted the arm from its gullet.

Jessie Arbogast passed into coma because of loss of blood, but surgeons were able to re-attach his arm, and when he woke up, it worked. Recovery has been long and slow. But he has his arm, thanks to the guts and courage of an angry uncle.

There are times when the devil rips you off. He steals your joy, your purity, your marriage. Whatever. Don’t cry and wring your hands by the shore. Go and fight, get it back!

Don’t give up. A lesson from bubble wrap

I guess you could call it a speculation bubble.

But when Alfred Fielding and Marc Chavannes invented bubble wrap in 1957, they were trying to make textured wallpaper. It came out funny-looking, but instead of giving up, they tried to find another application for their invention. Wah-laa! The stuff is the preferred packing protection against breakage. And it’s a lot of fun to pop between your fingers.

The genesis of bubble wrap shows how one things can lead to another. It is also a story of how you can stumble on success serendipitously. But most importantly, it is a story of not giving up. Today’s failures are tomorrow’s successes.

So if your bubble has been burst, don’t wrap it up. Keep giving it a try. You’re bound to hit success sooner or later.

A lot of confusion

The trials, the “reversals,” the difficulties all make sense when we look back over our lives to see how God has blessed and used us. In the middle of the tempest, you’re tempted to throw up your hands in despair.

But Christianity is not a backwards-looking religion. We are to pray for a better future, invest time in relationships and Bible study, work hard — all to see more of God in our lives. While we strive for better things ahead, we keep faith and remember the promise of Psalm 23:6: Surely your goodness and love will FOLLOW me all the days of my life. I may not understand today what God is doing, but eventually I will.

Smiling at death

With a noose around his neck on the scaffold, resistance fighter Stjepan Filipovic defied his Nazi captors. “Death to facism! Freedom to people!” the Yugoslav jeered.

There is a cause that is worth more than conserving your life: it is fighting evil. There are men who are unafraid to pay the ultimate price for the highest good, whether they be our armed forces or missionaries in remote villages. They are unafraid because they realize if they don’t live for something valuable, they don’t live.

God’s greatest work comes

at a time of your greatest adversity.

The darker it gets, the more we need to look up and believe.

Getting to winning

Fueling between games at the OC Kickoff Classic tournamente in Orange County.

Hosea’s club team has lost some games pretty badly. As a matter of fact, they hadn’t even scored since Hosea joined.

That all changed Sunday. The 13-year-olds from Autobahn Soccer Club in Santa Monica came from behind to win 2-1. It was a thrill and a confidence booster for the kids.

But how did they get from losing to winning? Competent coaching plays a large role. Winning soccer games consists of fitness, technical and tactical knowledge, pure talent and the right attitude. The coaches, Herve Roussel and Pierce Maher, have been patient teachers. They don’t yell at the kids and apparently don’t get frustrated.

Coaches aren’t everything. Parents play a role. They encourage the kids to believe in themselves. I’ve seen discouraged kids slog out onto the field. Before the game starts, they believe they’re going to lose. And they do.

Coach Pierce goes over some of the positives of a loss the day before their Sunday victory.

Kids play a role. They are improving practice after practice. They need to believe in themselves. They will perform at a higher level if they play with confidence and passion.

The funny thing is that this team’s “best players” left the team looking for a winning team. A hemorrhage of talent can discourage anyone, and yet the coaches, parents and kids have remained encouraged.  I guess the “stars” didn’t believe in the newcomers, among which was my son Hosea, who hasn’t been playing with confidence previously. As the older stars leave, the new stars have to rise up.

This has everything to do with your and my life. We have to get to winning. We can be on a long losing streak. But if daily, we work to improve one of these areas:

• fitness (think emotionally or spiritually)
• technical and tactical ability (grow intellectually daily)
• pure talent (there isn’t a person on the planet that God hasn’t given some special gifting)
• believe in yourself (the psychological battle is perhaps the toughest).

Keep believing in your dreams — and get to winning!