With each passing year, my heart overflows with gratitude to God who has blessed me to be alive another year. This year, 2022, is especially meaningful in that I celebrate my eightieth birthday. As is my custom, I compose a poem to celebrate my birthday and give all glory, honor, and praise to my gracious Heavenly Father. Here is my composition for this year.
A psalm celebration for my Eightieth Birthday
June 17, 2022
By Reason of Strength
The days of our lives are seventy years;
And if by reason of strength they are eighty years,
Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow;
For it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
Psalm 90:10 (NKJV)
By reason of strength that only comes from the Lord,
I have reached another milestone in my journey,
Sustained by the life-giving power of God’s Word,
As I proclaim great is your faithfulness toward me
And attempt one more time to thank you for my life:
For all you say I am and all I will become.
Praise God for countless blessings: for my lovely wife
And daughters and their families and heirs still to come
Who will honor and love and serve you all their days.
Though I have known you, may I know you even more,
While walking in wisdom, still numbering my days
As your favor abounds with greater blessings in store.
God, the Father of all grace, goes to any length
To protect and to provide by reason of strength.
“Dear God” by Smokie Norful captures the essence of what I attempt to express in my song of celebration:
Cancer affects everyone. With nearly seventeen million people living with and beyond cancer in the U.S. today and more than forty-three million cancer survivors, everyone knows someone whose life has been touched by cancer. On Sunday, June 5, 2022, communities around the world will unite to recognize these cancer survivors and to raise awareness of the challenges of cancer survivorship, as part of the 35th annual National Cancer Survivors Day® Celebration of Life.
In celebration of National Cancer Survivor Day, I am posting an excerpt from Embracing Your Life Sentence:How to Turn Life’s Greatest Tragedies into Your GreatestTriumphs. When diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2000, I did not see “a death sentence.” Instead, I saw a “life sentence” that transformed his thinking. The book provides my God-given, holistic strategy to overcome any adversity. Weaving original poetry and Scripture into my God-inspired battle plan, I show how I emerged, as not just a survivor but more than a conqueror.
I have revised and re-posted this entry that focuses on what I call the Word of the Day, which in this case is a survivor. In its most literal sense, the term means “one who survives.” FreeDictionary.com offers this series of definitions of the verb “to survive” as an action verb that has an object to receive its action. In this case, to survive cancer—
To live longer than; outlive.
To live, persist, or remain usable through any adverse situation.
To cope with (a trauma or setback); persevere after.
The verb comes from Latin—supervivere, combining the prefix super + vīvere, to live.
Having been diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2000, I have come to understand what it means to be a cancer survivor on a deeply personal level. I recognize a survivor as one who, after encountering an extremely adverse situation, is revived not only to survive but to thrive. Jesus Christ, the ultimate example of a survivor, endured the cross, despising the shame, and after undergoing unimaginable physical abuse, along with the emotional and psychological trauma of the highest degree, arose triumphantly over death itself. Like Christ, I have been revived, not only to survive but to thrive, having been transformed from victim to victor.
The true essence of who I am as a believer in Christ comes from Romans 8:37—”nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through him that loved us.”
The Amplified Bible puts it this way—
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors and gain an overwhelming victory through Him who loved us [so much that He died for us].
The expression “more than conquerors” in the Greek New Testament comes from the verb hupernikao, a compound word with the prefix huper—a form of the same prefix found in “survive”—meaning over, beyond, above exceed, more than. Today, common expressions of the preposition would say over and above or above and beyond. The stem would be nikao, translated “to conquer, prevail, overcome, overpower, prevail.” Although translated as such, being more than conquerors or super conquerors, is not who we are, but it is what we do, and how we live. We completely and overwhelmingly conqueror in the present tense with continuous action; we prevail mightily every day of our lives.
Each year I reflect with gratitude to God for being alive and being able to cherish another year of life. As is my tradition, I sometimes compose a poem of celebration on my birthday. Most remarkably, Romans 8:37 was the epigraph or introduction for a poem composed on my 74th birthday, expressing my new identity in light of the Word for the Day for Cancer Survivors Day and every day I draw breath.
Embracing Your Life Sentence–More than a Conqueror
Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors
and gain an overwhelming victory through Him
who loved us [so much that He died for us].
—Romans 8:37 (AMP)
Embracing Your Life Sentence, more than a conqueror,
Defying the odds as a brave conquistador.
Despite intense pressure, I learn to rest in grace,
More than enough to withstand the daily tests I face,
Not merely to survive but to thrive even more.
A mighty warrior, triumphant super victor
With a cause, prepared not to die but to live for.
At times I fell behind but fought to keep the pace:
Embracing Your Life Sentence, more than a conqueror.
To fulfill all the will of God and then to soar
To heights sublime where I have never been before.
Overcomer, bearing light in the darkest place,
I still fight the good fight, as I finish my race,
Moving forward, seeking to find the next open door:
Embracing Your Life Sentence, more than a conqueror.
We close with this powerful reminder of what we are as believers on National Cancer Survivors Day and every day: “More Than Conquerors” by Steven Curtis Chapman
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