Insidious not insignificant

I had biopsies taken of some suspicious looking growths the other day. The nurse told me that I would not hear anything back from the lab for at least two weeks; however just a few days later on Thursday I had a voice mail message to call the doctor and discuss my “options” regarding what we needed to do for “next steps”. Hmmm Not good.
When the dreaded call to the doctor’s office was made, the voice on the other end of the line indicated that both biopsies had come back positive and indeed were malignant skin cancers. Hmmm Not good.

A malignant tumor is a growth of tissue that forms an abnormal mass. Malignant tumors provide no useful function and grow at the expense of healthy cells and tissue. In general, a malignant tumor is caused by abnormal cell division. In my case it was caused by too much exposure to radiation from our warm and friendly sun without sunscreen protection. Too much exposure to the sun’s radiation through the years has affected my internal cell regulation device and on occasion causes it to malfunction and send signals to these nuisance cells to start dividing when they should stay asleep and leave my other surrounding cells the heck alone. Tumors are classified as, benign, slow-growing and often harmless depending on the location, or malignant, faster-growing and likely to spread to other parts of the body and cause problems. (Yes, I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express)

Malignant tumors are what we call cancer. Oh my goodness the dreaded “C” word. It seems that the type cancer that I have this time is not particularly aggressive or dangerous, (I have had far worse types of skin cancer removed in the past), but anytime a malignant cancer is found, it is still a serious situation and time is of the essence to get it removed before it spreads via our lymphatic system and begins to cause serious damage to other parts of our bodies, especially to vital organs like the liver, pancreas, brain, or lungs, thus surgery is scheduled for me late next week. By catching it early and removing it via surgery, I stand an excellent chance of “nipping it entirely in the bud” and experiencing no further problems.

Generally I go to the dermatologist once every three months and he addresses pre-cancerous and small cancerous growths before they advance to this stage; however I have been remiss of late, largely due to an overwhelming schedule of too much work and not enough tending to my health needs and this time I delayed it by nearly a year. Dumb This behavior of course could result in serious consequences and I am aware that I need to get “religious” about systematically making these visits in the future. (Please no nagging letters Trust me in that I am getting daily nagging sessions faithfully and incessantly administered by my loving “nagging” wife.)

I was thinking how similar malignant tumors, (cancer), is to sin. If we ignore sin and delay removing it from our lives, it will become thoroughly entrenched and begin to grow and grow and grow. If we do not address our sin problem early, ultimately it can result in taking our very lives, or at the very least, end up extensively damaging them. Don’t put off addressing those sins in your life as I did with my skin cancer problems. Systematically have a sin check-up and take the necessary action to remove it from your being.

Ask anyone who has experienced fighting cancer and they will tell you that it is no fun to try to remove it from your body once it has had a chance to get firmly established within your being. Chemo therapy, radiation therapy, and surgery are painful. The earlier it is detected, the easier and less painful it is to treat. It is far better to address it when it is first trying to get established in your being than when it has invaded to the inner depths.

Sin is identical in nature and once firmly established, it will be painful to remove. Just think about alcohol, drugs, pornography, sex outside of marriage, coveting, lying, jealousy, compulsive gambling to name a few. Like cancer invading our bodies, sin does not invade our bodies in a grandiose style and begin as a major problem whereby five alarms are sounding, lights are flashing, and the sirens are wailing. It begins as a small seemingly innocent and hardly noticeable insignificant thing; however, once firmly established and allowed to grow it can become an addiction and control your life; make no mistake about it, if not treated, it will grow to insidious levels and can turn into a monster and your worst nightmare.

Proverbs 14:12
There is a way that seems right
to a man,
But its end is the way of
death.