Limping with Jesus

By Tom Cannon

My return to God was a slow and arduous process, with many missteps. I kept trying to coast, to ease back into relationship with Him without making any serious commitments. Then the day before Thanksgiving 2022, I developed a mysterious ailment that took my doctors months to figure out. As it progressed and my back pain worsened, I returned to church walking with a cane. I made the decision to fully return to relationship with God as my body was falling apart, and the cancer diagnosis was confirmed soon after. I began journaling, hoping to leave something of myself for my loved ones, and those efforts became this book.

 

I am trying to walk with Jesus but after a lifetime of ignoring God I've found I walk with a limp, a spiritual reflection of those faltering first steps back into church. This is the story of my internal journey as I dealt with chemotherapy, read through the Bible for the first time, and wrestled with my demons. I pray that those who read it realize that they are not alone in struggling to heal from old wounds, sort themselves out, and take up their cross to follow Him.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tom Cannon
• Release date: Mar 10, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224047758

Tom Cannon

Tom Cannon was born in St. Mary's, Georgia and raised in northeastern Ohio. He is a software developer by trade and teaches children's Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in his spare time. He lives in Oklahoma with his wife Lisa and his three dogs, Jak, Maynard, and Tanner. This is his first book.

Book preview

JUNE

2023-06-12 As I read the ancient histories in Genesis 9 I'm beginning to feel a comforting sense of continuity. God's work is never-ending and each of us plays only a small part while we are here. There are generations of people only mentioned in a single verse; we are not all Noah or Abraham. Some of us are only connecting threads between one great person and the next. Some of us are not remembered at all.

We don't know anything about these people except for their names. Indeed, in a hundred years that is all that will be left of most of us: a name carved in a stone. I can only pray that God does something in the greater span of things that makes it important that I was here.

Lord, let me impact a life such that my name meant something, even if it's not remembered.

2023-06-17 It’s interesting that Job’s friends speak a lot of truth, it’s just that the truth they speak doesn’t seem to apply to Job. They talk a lot about God’s punishments and judgments for the wicked. They try to back their way into this is how God treats the wicked, and this is what’s happening to you, so you must not be as good as you’re letting on. I’m given to pause and think about the piling-on that I have occasionally witnessed in the church, and maybe that’s what God would have me watch out for in the future.

I have prayed wrongly over people in my ignorance, and I ask God to forgive me and bless them. There are days when I am tormented by my past sins, and I ask that God forgive me and help me to forget as He does. We cannot bargain or negotiate with God. When we try to say God, if You do this for me, I’ll be good, or I’ll stop doing this bad thing, we are only fooling ourselves. God is in control either way. If I beat cancer or die from it, the power is ultimately God’s. It won’t be because I’ve cleaned up my act or because I stumble in something. God is in control.

The human tendency to recognize cause and effect desires the same relationship with God. Do a good deed, get rewarded. Commit a sin, get punished. But God is not a vending machine or video game. Sometimes His plan allows us to suffer. We grow in suffering. His Glory is revealed in it, as well as His Love and Mercy.

Lord, help me keep that at the front of my mind. Never let me stop worshipping. Build my faith.

2023-06-22 I’m having a hard time focusing this morning. Reading over the verses a second and third time to try and pound them into my head is only producing minimal results. I keep looking for a takeaway verse to try and focus my thoughts, but that’s not helping either. I probably just need more sleep. I didn’t sleep very well so about the best my brain can manage this morning is writing down descriptions of my zombie-like state.

The theology book we’ve been recommended at church is talking about why our faith matters. The act of believing is not just a feeling or emotion, and I accept that. Faith is a verb. Sometimes I struggle to just simply believe. My mind gets tangled up in a universe of Schrodinger’s wagers, Pascal style. I want to explore every possibility while knowing that there’s just one reality. I should just focus on believing.

Lord help me. I’m terrified that I might not believe as I am supposed to, and that I’m doing this all wrong.

2023-06-24 Wake up, read, pray, journal. Of all these I find praying the most difficult. I don’t know if it’s as simple as the attenuation of my ability to focus my thoughts, or if I’m just that far gone from God. I’m doing my best though — when I pray, I try to remember gratitude for what God is giving me in this time, especially for the remission of my back pain. I try to remember to ask forgiveness for my sins, and to catalog them as honestly as I can. I try to remember to pray for those I care about by name, though it seems every day I forget some person or another.

The people I see as adversaries are more difficult. When I remember to pray for them, all I can do is ask for their conscience to meet with God for a reckoning, that they would turn from their ways. Every other prayer seems mushy headed. I’m bad at this.

2023-06-30 I have to go today and get a haircut for family pictures. It is probably the last haircut I will have for a while, possibly ever. I usually keep my hair short, in a military-style cut, so the prospect of losing it to chemo doesn’t really bother me, but the potential finality of it gives me a moment’s pause.

There is a last time we will do everything. We almost never know when we are doing it, that it will be the last time. Cancer focuses the mind on such things, and I am given to wonder if each mundane activity will be the last time I do it.

I think on the one hand, if we knew, we might approach things differently, with more intention. If you knew that this was the last time you would kiss or hug someone, wouldn’t you do it differently? Looking back is torturous though. I remember my last face-to-face conversation with my Aunt Debbie, and the sadness in her eyes. I tried to be optimistic, but I think she knew the cancer was going to kill her before I could make good on my promise to come back for another visit. In some ways not knowing is a mercy. If I knew every last time as it came, I think the grief alone would kill me. Praise God who knows what I can handle and what I can’t.

JULY

2023-07-03 I have begun planning my (hopefully temporary) exit from teaching kids’ jiu-jitsu. This will be the hardest thing I have had to do in the martial arts. Most of the time I can’t even say the words to the people who are trying to encourage me and pray me through it. I don’t know if I have the strength. I break down in tears just rehearsing the speech in front of the bathroom mirror.

I love these kids and I want what’s best for them, but I can’t continue to coach or be counted upon while I go through chemotherapy. My doctor says I need to be careful about infection and ordinary disease, and as school starts up again kids will be exposed to more and more that I might not be able to handle. If I want to coach kids again, I need to let others take my place and trust God to care for everyone in the meantime.

Lord give me strength.

2023-07-06 Yesterday as Mom and Dad were about to leave, I gathered us all together in a group hug, intending to pray over their safe journey home. Mom broke down in tears and said, Lord watch over my boy. So instead we cried together.

Lisa told me later that Mom has been living in the belief that I would go through a round of treatment and be done. While I was at the gym, she had to tell them that it’s much more serious than that. She said Mom was shocked.

Jordan Peterson says that a good character goal is to be the strongest person at your father’s funeral. There’s a lot tied up in that statement. It appears I may have to be the strongest person at my own funeral. This, strangely, I feel I can do. But I also have faith in God that it might not be necessary.

Either way, Your will be done, Lord. Use my life to bring the lost ones back to You and to glorify Yourself. Whatever it takes.

2023-07-12 When I was searching for a church this time around, I wasn’t sure what I was looking for. I knew I wanted a church that stood on the Bible and refused to modernize its teachings so as not to offend modern sensibilities. I didn’t know how I was going to ascertain that from a sermon or two.

My dad has always talked about a church that preaches salvation, but I never quite knew what he meant by that. It sounds like a good standard, but I am a nerd and need precise definitions of things.

As it happened, I visited 4 churches before settling on my current one. In 3 of them I heard a message that amounted to this is what the Bible says about sin, and we will not change it or apologize for it. In 2 of those we sang the hymn The Old Rugged Cross, and it moved me to tears each time.

In the 3 unapologetic churches I had someone chase me down afterward to see how I was doing, ask if I would be coming back, and to further invite me or draw me in to the fold. I was reminded in each case of Jesus talking about the shepherd who leaves the 99 to go find the one who is lost. At the 4th church I just sort of disappeared in the crowd.

I don’t know what exactly moved me to choose the church I now attend over the other two. It may be no more spiritual than the fact that it is significantly closer to my house than the other two. I have friends at all 3, and I love each of them, but the one I’m at feels more and more like home every Sunday.

As if to validate my decision, this past week we once again sang The Old Rugged Cross as part of worship, and once again it moved me to tears. I can’t even read the lyrics now without crying. It’s not even my favorite hymn and thank God for that. If we ever get to that one it might just kill me.

Until then, I will cling to the Old Rugged Cross, and exchange it some day for a crown.

2023-07-20 Moses wasn't even exposed to God's full Glory and his face shone. A woman who touched the hem of Jesus' garment was immediately healed. I have experienced healing through God's grace and mercy that made it so I couldn't stop grinning ear to ear for days. A personal encounter with God, even the smallest portion of Him, produces miracles.

In my own case it was as though God merely turned His attention to me for the briefest moment on my Walk to Emmaus, and for a time nothing was impossible for me. But like the children of Israel, I eventually fell back into my old habits and now I once again struggle to find Him, even after doing the work of cleaning up my act again.

I hold on to the memory of that brief encounter with His Glory. I remember what it felt like, and I know that He is real and powerful. I have been away for so long and all I want is to touch the hem of His garment one more time.

Seek the Lord while he may be found;

call upon him while he is near;

let the wicked forsake his way,

and the unrighteous man his thoughts;

let him return to the Lord, that he may have compassion on him,

and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.

— Isaiah 55:6-7 (ESV)

FEAR AND TREMBLING

2023-07-24 The first time I read through the New Testament, I was surprised by the main message that I got out of it. It seemed that throughout the text of the gospels particularly, God was repeating that cliche of schoolteachers everywhere: eyes on your own paper, people!

I confess that I didn't like Paul that much. He came across as arrogant and kind of a jerk. Jesus already laid down some hard truths, got crucified, rose again, lit a fire with the church, and then Paul came along and even post conversion sounded like he just enjoyed pushing people around. But in a couple of spots, particularly Romans 14 and some Philippians, he seemed to echo that message: keep your eyes on your own paper.

I tend to grit my teeth when folks start judging the spiritual lives of others. I remember the warnings in a host of scriptures... 1 Kings 8:39, 1 Samuel 16:7, Revelation 2:23, and on and on... we only see the outside. The only person we see inside is ourselves, and we don't even see that very clearly—certainly not as clearly as we'd like to believe, as Jordan Peterson points out in almost every lecture.

So, when people ask me what's my favorite verse of the Bible (that I've read so far, heh), it's Philippians 2:12, written by that jerk Paul: ...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling (ESV).

I like the translations that keep the word own, because it seems to double down on cleaning your own house. I can't give anything meaningful to a fellow alcoholic unless my own house is clean. I need to keep the focus about what needs to be washed firmly on that guy in the mirror.

I also dislike when this verse is quoted without fear and trembling. These words speak to humility. I'm not as pure and righteous as I want to think I am. I have lived in filth. It still tries to cling to me, and it's only Jesus that keeps me clean, because I am weak and easily tempted.

That's why I love verses that ask God to challenge, examine, and judge me. I have tried to hold myself accountable, and I fail every time. But as Nicole C. Mullen put it, when I call on Jesus, all things are possible. God is the only way forward.

And just like in jiu-jitsu, where I've seen (and been) the white belt who leads another white belt into bad techniques, I couple this verse with James 3:1 and am terrified in a way that I think not enough people are. This is not to say that courage isn't warranted for those called to teach, but that it seems too easy to step forward without apprehending all the facts of the situation. It's easy to say I know the answer, let me teach it to you... it's hard to ask the question of yourself, how much do I actually know about what I'm saying I know?

I guess that's why, on this go-round, the first thing I undertook to do was begin a plan to read the entire Bible. That jerk Paul keeps reminding me that I don't even know the full story of what I claim to believe. Onward then, with fear and trembling.

LOSING MY LIFE

2023-07-28 I like to joke that the Covid-19 vaccine gave me cancer. It’s probably closer to the truth to say I gave it to myself. I spent most of my early adult life obese and out of shape. When I was about 36 years old, I injured my back lifting something that was far too heavy for me. That began a journey of self-transformation, lifting weights, exercising, dieting, and generally getting healthier.

About 10 years into that journey, I started studying martial arts. I’ve been at that ever since, stopping only recently due to the demands of chemotherapy.

I’ve spent a lot of time writing and thinking about physical fitness, and it’s probably jarring for some to see me pivot to more spiritual topics. It’s probably easy to assume I started seeking God in response to cancer, but the truth is my conscience has condemned me for years. I’m just more open about it now.

Mentally, I tend to float back and forth between the purely mundane and the purely spiritual. I think they need to support each other, and I have an inkling of an idea that part of what we’re missing in America or the West is the integration of both sides of our existence. Our spiritual lives might be in good shape, but our embodiment is not (obesity epidemic, anyone?). Or the opposite may be true — we may be gym rats with nothing to show for our spiritual journeys.

I’ve been a Christian for a long time, but I’m really bad at it. When I’m at least attempting to do it right, I try to connect exercise, practice, and iteration of physical skills with spiritual disciplines. Most of the time I do this badly, but occasionally something happens in spite of me. It’s usually during the practice of one that I get an epiphany about the other.

In this case, I was out shooting, thinking about nothing but the fact that while my arrows were striking close to the bullseye, and I was getting respectable groups for a change (minute of venison as one friend puts it), I was still off the mark — literally sinning, according to the archaic meaning of the word. It looked good, but I was not hitting the bullseye. It was then that a portion of this verse came into my head: whoever desires to save his life will lose it.

I was suddenly struck by all the time, effort, and money I’ve poured into physical fitness, and this sort of irrational belief I’d had that doing all of the healthy things would guarantee me a long life. And it’s not that any of the things I was doing in this regard were wrong — it’s that I was doing it to preserve my own life for me and my purposes. I was not spending my life in the service of God or even really of others. Some said I was a good example to them of how to get after it even late in life, but I took all that praise as a thing for me and me alone. It looked good from the outside, but I was not hitting the mark because my why was wrong.

In my mind, it was my own stubbornness and fortitude that led me to get my physical life in order. I claimed responsibility and I expected to claim the rewards. But in the instant this verse came into my head, I knew that God had given me the motivation and drive to turn my physical life around, and God expected me to spend the results on His work, and I had once again failed.

God knows that most of the time it takes a hard knock (like a cancer diagnosis) to get my attention. So here I am, writing about spiritual things because I have nothing left to lose. I finally get what Paul meant when he said to live is Christ and to die is gain. I’m no idiot — I know what my diagnosis means in terms of my chances. I have sought to save my life for my benefit, and I have already lost it as a result. I will spend what is left trying to hit the bullseye. And if God sees fit to give my life back, I will spend that too. There is no other choice that makes any sense at all to me.

"For whoever desires to save his life will lose it,

but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it."

— Matthew 16:25 (NKJV)

HUNTING

2023-07-31 Two years ago, I hesitantly inquired of my friend Brandi if it might be all right with her husband for me to hunt with him. It was already deer season, and I figured I’d spend the next year getting ready, but to my surprise she set it up for that year. My wife expressed surprise that I was thinking about hunting again (I had made several unsuccessful attempts in my 20’s), but in reality I had been thinking about it for a very long time.

After my friend Rev. Richard Whetsell had been serving a church in Alaska for a while, we had a conversation about God and the differences between preaching there vs here in the lower 48 states. He said something to the effect that in mainland USA, we tend to live separated from the Creation, and he wondered about what that’s done to our relationship with the Creator.

Something as simple as the year’s first snow means almost nothing to most of us down here. In Alaska it means get ready for winter, a season in which it is entirely possible that you won’t be able to leave your house for extended periods of time, there’s no food delivery, and electricity is a luxury instead of a foregone conclusion. The land is filled with two species of megafauna — the brown bear and the moose — that will kill you just as easily as look at you. As he put it, the Creation pretty much doesn’t care whether you live or die.

People in Alaska don’t have a lot of patience for idiots. If you set out into the wilderness without a plan or basic knowledge and get lost, they’ll recover your body when it’s convenient to do so. There’s no cultural expectation of rescue from your own stupidity like there is in the Lower 48.

This produces people who are more individually capable, but it also produces a different kind of faith. Richard said that in his experience Alaskans didn’t have much time for sermons without immediate practical application.

Much like my inkling of an idea regarding the physical embodiment of our faith journeys, these thoughts from Richard had been rolling around in my head for many years. What is missing from my relationship to the Creator when I separate myself from the Creation?

And so it was that I asked Brandi about hunting with her husband Casey, he agreed to take me along, and under his guidance I managed to kill my first deer. I was still processing my thoughts when he took a picture of me with it, so I wasn’t smiling. I have never posted that picture anywhere publicly; I don't have any problem with those who do, and I'm not ashamed of the fact that I hunt, but both times