Facebook has been an interesting tool recently as it unexpectedly pops up photos from the past years. I was so tickled to see a picture of my family outside of church taken the month I was diagnosed with stage 4 leukemia. It made me appreciate that I am still here; living, loving, and sharing as best I can every single day.
It was a year ago that I began the SCOTT STANKAVAGE BLOG, which was meant to chronicle my thoughts, insights, and perspectives that have come from living with a terminal illness. We have posted 50-some blogs to date, and our friends at Facebook have started reposting the earliest blogs from last summer when I started. It has been fun to re-read the older entries and recall what I was thinking, feeling and sharing 12 months ago.
I took a break from writing and blogging this past month as my health and energy has been a bit inconsistent. We are working with both oncologists and a palliative care specialist at Duke Medical Center to get the most out of every day for my family and me. So far so good.
A few weeks ago I visited my son, Shawn, at Vanderbilt in Nashville. He had just had his third surgery for a torn ACL, and I was also able to see my middle daughter, Shelby, and her husband in Memphis on the same trip. It was wonderful to spend time in their worlds; to offer fatherly encouragement about life and to share how proud I was of the adults they have become. Surprisingly, both Shelby and Shawn commented to me about my writing, asking me if I was still blogging. They wondered why they had not read a new post in a couple of weeks. That same weekend, my oldest daughter, Sarah, also asked me the same question on the phone. It was precious to realize that my oldest children expressed their enjoyment of the blogs, and that they missed them when they did not regularly see them. I asked my wife, Kate, what she thought about my writing, and she shared that my family enjoyed my short, sometimes whimsical look at life in less than 1000 words every week. Kate also suggested that the blog actually served a double purpose; first to encourage, inspire and bless the reader, but also as another therapy of sorts for my own soul.
Yesterday, in a quiet time of prayer reflecting on my blog work, I heard The Lord whisper to me ‘Third Down.’ I knew instantly what He was saying. In football, third down is the most critical down for a quarterback; if he can do his job and be successful in converting third downs into first downs, then that bodes well for the success of the entire team.
It feels to me that this is third down for me in life. Fourth down is do or die, so I don’t feel as though I am in fourth down territory. However, at age 54, with a terminal illness and essentially disabled, I am certain it is not first or second down, where a quarterback has more options and time. Where he can waste a down or throw the ball away.
It is third down in my life. This is the way I like it. People look to the quarterback to make the right throw to the right guy at the right time and with accuracy, in order that the team can get another set of downs and keep the drive alive. Well, that is what I am trying to do, keep the drive alive, for Kate, my six living children, for their children, and for my mom, my brothers, my sisters, and friends.
All that being said, I would like to announce that I am officially changing the name of my musings to THIRD DOWN: A BLOG FROM SCOTT STANKAVAGE. I hope you enjoy the future blogs I will offer, as you read them over coffee or on your phone. I promise to keep them under 1000 words so you can read them or dismiss them quickly and move on to other emails and posts. But I want to assure you that this quarterback plans to convert this third down and many more so that we can eventually score the ultimate touchdown in life.
Blessings to all.
Amen and AMEN!