If you know Ryan, he is, and forever will be, a prankster. He loves to "pull one over" on someone, never one to shy away from a good laugh. And more years than I can count ago, in Bozeman, he and our dear friend James decided to play a prank on the rest of their housemates. Their goal, to get their friends to think that the house was burning down. (I would be remiss if I didn't include the caveat that this was college life, we were younger and dumber, and they didn't totally think through the consequences of this particular prank.)
So, when the trap was laid, the ruse set, the prank began. Fanning the flames, both literal and proverbial of a (very controlled) fire, Ryan and James ran upstairs to tell their unsuspecting sleeping roomies that the house was ablaze. As the story goes, one sweet friend immediately jumped up from the couch where she'd been sleeping and ran around panicking, shouting, not knowing what to do, and rightly so. Another friend, still half asleep, stood up and in a fervent voice, began laying hands on the wall of the house and praying over it.
In the moment, it was a hilarious prank, all were told that the house was not on fire very quickly (via fake phone call to fake fire department), the fire was quickly extinguished and everyone had a good laugh. Except maybe the poor trash can. (No people were harmed in the making of this prank... or some sort of disclaimer of that nature.)
But each year, I keep thinking about those two reactions. Mind you, these dear hearts were awoken in the dead of night, and in various stages of slumber, but, each passing year as the story gets retold, the imagery of smoke billowing, flames reflecting off of the walls, the sleep stupor that often removes what filter a fully awake, and alert, and prepared individual might do and say, these were two starkly different approaches to the appearance of impending doom: to panic or to pray.
You guys. When I think about this, I am 100% the panick-er. My first inclination, when the poop hits the fan, when the house is burning down, when everything around me is collapsing, is to panic. But why? It seems so logical to take action, to lift my hands and my heart, to do something that can actually change the circumstances and how I feel... But instead I just marinate in worry, as if the act of worrying, panicking, would somehow move me forward.
It won't. It doesn't.
I also love that, the importance of these words "the appearance of impending doom". The appearance. It wasn't real. The fire was real, sure, but it was extremely small, and contained in a metal trashcan. It posed no real danger in any way. Oh but the smoke, and the reflection of the flames on the wall made it look so much bigger, so much more dangerous and scary and awful. And isn't that always so true? When we look at the problem, when we see the obstacle, it is always blown way out of proportion. It looks like we will never survive it. But it's just a small fire, that would never hurt us really - but what did hurt us, is the fear. After all, isn't that what panic is? In it's very essence, panic is fear.
Oh it always comes down to this, doesn't it? Fear controls so much of what we do, what we say, how we present ourselves, the decisions that we make, how we live our lives. And yet, fear is a feeling, it is not an actual thing. If we spend our lives making choices based on feelings and not reality, we will live a crippled life.
Fear is a liar.
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So right now, this story hits home. It hits home because the Tuesday before last, after a routine CT scan, we found out Ryan had what appeared to be a lesion on his liver and that it was possible his cancer had come back.
(Insert all of the "house is burning down" feelings here)
Oh that fear. It creeps up, like seeing the reflection of the flames on the wall, the smoke billowing up the steps, it is so hard not to panic, not to shout, and to know what to do. But I want to be the friend who stopped in the middle of the "fire" and prayed. And so, with proverbially smoke all around us, we prayed. And prayed. And prayed.
We had to wait for over a week to get an MRI and the results, and much like last time we dealt with the big C, time seems to stand still.
The smoke billowed, the flames threatened. We prayed. I basically had Fear Is a Liar on constant repeat on my phone, in our car and in the house.
A week ago tomorrow we met with Ryan's oncologist who confirmed that what they thought might be a lesion, was actually just an irregular artery. Basically a blip. A nothing. Not cancer, no surgery, no future concerns about it. I cannot tell you how quickly the house blaze was put out, but it was truly like a fire hose being sprayed beautifully over our lives.
But.
That appointment, that answer, it doesn't change what we already knew, even when it seemed like the flames were taking over. What we know is that God is good, and that He provides and protects us. This does not change our circumstances or how we live. If anything, it continues to cement it.
In certain seasons of every life, it will feel like the house is burning down. Sometimes it will feel so close that you can taste the heat. But try to remember, fear is a liar - the house is not burning down. It is only a mirage, something to fan fear and panic into your life, so you are off-kilter and cannot be at peace, and that is not a life anyone wants to live.
