LEARNING YOUR LIMITS
It took cancer for me to separate the essential from the optional.
C. John Miller
October 1, 1989
A pastor who knows me well once told me, "Jack, you have a bias toward action."
I took this as a compliment. For fifteen years, I have been active serving New Life Presbyterian Church, a growing congregation in suburban Philadelphia. As I thought about that comment, in September 1987, we were planting a daughter church in nearby Fort Washington. Each Saturday I lectured to our leadership training class and on Sunday shared the preaching with another pastor. I helped initiate our fund-raising program for a new building; we needed $1,200,000 in pledges by early December. I was also scheduled to speak at a seminary in late October and at a missions conference in another church in November.
One Tuesday I picked up my Day-timer to review the week's schedule: four seriously ill people to call on, my own doctor's appointment, several requests for counseling, a sermon outline for the church bulletin to be completed by tomorrow morning, a fund-raising letter to be written to the congregation by Thursday evening; in addition, five meetings were scheduled between Tuesday evening and Friday noon; Friday night and Saturday I was speaking three times to our leadership training class and on Sunday preaching twice.
My Sunday sermon topic was "Doing What You Can," but I knew I was way beyond that. I survived the week only by postponing some visiting, giving up my day off, and canceling out of two meetings.
My wife, Rose Marie, had been troubled by this nonstop activity. She once said to me, "Jack, you have made New Life Church into your mistress."
But how could I stop? What could I give up?
A Jolt
Three weeks later I checked into Germantown Hospital for a routine visit, but the doctors detected a rapidly growing cancer in my abdomen. "You have ...
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