The Thing About Statistics and Invisible Things
Anyone who knows me, knows that I am not a risk-taker. Not even a little bit. In fact, I am completely risk-adverse. And Jake...more of a risk-taker than me, not afraid to do dumb things or get hurt, but when it comes down to making real grown- up decisions, not a risk-taker either. And we are both numbers people. We want to know current numbers, tracks, percentages, variables, statistics, the odds. So since the mammogram in February, there's been a lot of digging to find the numbers and the risks at every turn.
What's the percentage of survival? What's the rate of recurrence? What are the risks of surgery? Well how many people experience those risks? What are the drawbacks to radiation? What are my chances of recurrence with versus without radiation? With or without this medication? What are the rare-but-serious as well as the common side effects?
And when we were agonizing over the decision of whether or not to do radiation, Jake looked at me with the confidence of a man with the final answer and said "well, we are both pretty risk-adverse people." To which I replied, quite exasperated at that point, "Yeah, I know that! But there are risks either way, whether we do it or not...we have no choice but to incur risks, so which flavor of risks do we choose?!"
Here's the thing about statistics though, that occurred to me early on...
YOU DON'T GET TO CHOOSE WHAT SIDE OF THE STATISTIC YOU ARE ON!
1 in 8 women will develop breast cancer in their lifetime, roughly 12%. That percentage is even lower for women under 40. And you can reduce your risk further by exercising, eating a healthy diet, maintaining a healthy weight, not smoking, not consuming alcohol, and if you want to get extreme, not consuming caffeine. All the things I followed! My chance of getting breast cancer at 34 was so very low. Yet here I am. Great that the statistic may be 5%....but the bottom line is that ultimately I don't get to choose if I am in the 95% or the 5%.
Here's the other thing: statistics make a poor god and so does information.
When I was first handed informational pamphlets after the suspicious mammogram (which means before official diagnosis), I did what I knew I had to do at that point and shoved them in a drawer, vowing not to look at them unless the time came where I needed to look at them. About a week into my 2 week wait for the biopsy, I cracked. All the potential scenarios and what ifs were flashing through my head 24/7, and I wanted to ease the anxiety with some information and percentages. I wanted to find comfort in statistics that were on my side. Can you guess what happened? It got SOoooo much worse!
I was convicted later that night that I had turned to the numbers instead of turning to God. In essence, I had made them an idol. All the things that were available to me through an all-powerful, loving, and present heavenly Father, I was looking for in statistics, and science, and doctors. And doctors are like meteorologists ya'll - they can't actually predict with certainty what the storm will do! They can observe the storm, they can educate you on the storm, they can study previous storms, they can make predictions about what they think the storm will do, but they can't actually tell you the future. One of my doctors told me on more than one occasion, "I just don't have a magic ball."
I confessed my error, my sin of idolatry, to the Father who always forgives and extends grace, and have made a concerted effort, albeit imperfect, to focus on Absolute Truth and Light/Jesus! as my source of peace, comfort, hope, healing, and joy in the midst of LIFE. I've written a lot on that in previous posts, so I won't belabor the point here, but that perspective shift has made all the difference.
So now some quick thoughts on invisible things....
During my workout one morning, I was listening to a delightful podcast I recently discovered (check out Emily P. Freeman's podcast called "The Next Right Thing."), and she said something that kinda struck me funny. In the middle of an episode that really had nothing to do with this, she said "I believe in invisible things." As a Christian, I automatically understood and agreed with that statement. But as a human, I thought, "well that sure makes us sound crazy."
That phrase got stuck on repeat in my head, and I thought about the analogy I'd heard so many, many times about God/the Holy Spirit being like the wind....you can't see wind, but you can see evidence of its existence as you observe its effects on your surroundings. And I think because my entire life has been lived in "church-world," sometimes those really valid and great analogies just kinda get lost on me or put into the "cheesy/fluffy/overdone" category because I have heard them so much.
But as I was driving to radiation later that morning, I realized I was literally staking my physical life on invisible things too. When people asked about my radiation experience, I always explained it as "I just lay there while invisible cancer-killing rays are supposedly being shot at me." Nothing touched me, I couldn't see whatever it was that was being shot at me. I could hear the machine make noises, I could see that my skin was getting a little more pink with each exposure, but I never actually saw these life-saving yet dangerous rays. Rays so potentially dangerous in fact, that I had to enter a door about 2 feet thick, labeled with all kinds of "danger" and "warning" signs, just to get to them.
So many additional rabbit trail thoughts to pull from the above. (1) We don't do anything to actually save ourselves, we "just lay there." (2) And yet, we do have to make the choice to put ourselves on that "radiation table." We have to accept the invitation of salvation that is being extended. (3) The more we expose ourselves to Jesus, the more we start to look like Him. With each exposure we get "a little more pink." (4) And to quote C.S. Lewis in "The Chronicles of Narnia," He is not a "tame lion." He is good, but He is all-powerful. He is loving, but He is holy. He is an approachable, compassionate Father, but He is the creator of the universe and as such, demands our reverence as well.
But the main point: EVERYONE believes in invisible things to some extent. Whether its the wind, radiation, x-rays, UV rays, or microwaves. And then there are ideas and concepts like love, hate, hope....more things you can't see with your eyes yet you can see the effects of all around and inside of you. And hello?! Gravity! To believe in invisible things... to believe in God... is not crazy...it's really not much of a jump from the things that every human lives under the assumption of without question.
So now my daily aim is to seek comfort, peace, and JOY not in numbers, stats, and doctors, who with advancements in science and technology, change as frequently as hurricane tracks... but to find the good things of life in a God who is unchanging, yet has the power to change the storms of my circumstances and the ones that still sometimes brew inside of me.
What's the percentage of survival? What's the rate of recurrence? What are the risks of surgery? Well how many people experience those risks? What are the drawbacks to radiation? What are my chances of recurrence with versus without radiation? With or without this medication? What are the rare-but-serious as well as the common side effects?
And when we were agonizing over the decision of whether or not to do radiation, Jake looked at me with the confidence of a man with the final answer and said "well, we are both pretty risk-adverse people." To which I replied, quite exasperated at that point, "Yeah, I know that! But there are risks either way, whether we do it or not...we have no choice but to incur risks, so which flavor of risks do we choose?!"
Here's the thing about statistics though, that occurred to me early on...
YOU DON'T GET TO CHOOSE WHAT SIDE OF THE STATISTIC YOU ARE ON!
1 in 8 women will develop breast cancer in their lifetime, roughly 12%. That percentage is even lower for women under 40. And you can reduce your risk further by exercising, eating a healthy diet, maintaining a healthy weight, not smoking, not consuming alcohol, and if you want to get extreme, not consuming caffeine. All the things I followed! My chance of getting breast cancer at 34 was so very low. Yet here I am. Great that the statistic may be 5%....but the bottom line is that ultimately I don't get to choose if I am in the 95% or the 5%.
Here's the other thing: statistics make a poor god and so does information.
When I was first handed informational pamphlets after the suspicious mammogram (which means before official diagnosis), I did what I knew I had to do at that point and shoved them in a drawer, vowing not to look at them unless the time came where I needed to look at them. About a week into my 2 week wait for the biopsy, I cracked. All the potential scenarios and what ifs were flashing through my head 24/7, and I wanted to ease the anxiety with some information and percentages. I wanted to find comfort in statistics that were on my side. Can you guess what happened? It got SOoooo much worse!
I was convicted later that night that I had turned to the numbers instead of turning to God. In essence, I had made them an idol. All the things that were available to me through an all-powerful, loving, and present heavenly Father, I was looking for in statistics, and science, and doctors. And doctors are like meteorologists ya'll - they can't actually predict with certainty what the storm will do! They can observe the storm, they can educate you on the storm, they can study previous storms, they can make predictions about what they think the storm will do, but they can't actually tell you the future. One of my doctors told me on more than one occasion, "I just don't have a magic ball."
I confessed my error, my sin of idolatry, to the Father who always forgives and extends grace, and have made a concerted effort, albeit imperfect, to focus on Absolute Truth and Light/Jesus! as my source of peace, comfort, hope, healing, and joy in the midst of LIFE. I've written a lot on that in previous posts, so I won't belabor the point here, but that perspective shift has made all the difference.
So now some quick thoughts on invisible things....
During my workout one morning, I was listening to a delightful podcast I recently discovered (check out Emily P. Freeman's podcast called "The Next Right Thing."), and she said something that kinda struck me funny. In the middle of an episode that really had nothing to do with this, she said "I believe in invisible things." As a Christian, I automatically understood and agreed with that statement. But as a human, I thought, "well that sure makes us sound crazy."
That phrase got stuck on repeat in my head, and I thought about the analogy I'd heard so many, many times about God/the Holy Spirit being like the wind....you can't see wind, but you can see evidence of its existence as you observe its effects on your surroundings. And I think because my entire life has been lived in "church-world," sometimes those really valid and great analogies just kinda get lost on me or put into the "cheesy/fluffy/overdone" category because I have heard them so much.
But as I was driving to radiation later that morning, I realized I was literally staking my physical life on invisible things too. When people asked about my radiation experience, I always explained it as "I just lay there while invisible cancer-killing rays are supposedly being shot at me." Nothing touched me, I couldn't see whatever it was that was being shot at me. I could hear the machine make noises, I could see that my skin was getting a little more pink with each exposure, but I never actually saw these life-saving yet dangerous rays. Rays so potentially dangerous in fact, that I had to enter a door about 2 feet thick, labeled with all kinds of "danger" and "warning" signs, just to get to them.
So many additional rabbit trail thoughts to pull from the above. (1) We don't do anything to actually save ourselves, we "just lay there." (2) And yet, we do have to make the choice to put ourselves on that "radiation table." We have to accept the invitation of salvation that is being extended. (3) The more we expose ourselves to Jesus, the more we start to look like Him. With each exposure we get "a little more pink." (4) And to quote C.S. Lewis in "The Chronicles of Narnia," He is not a "tame lion." He is good, but He is all-powerful. He is loving, but He is holy. He is an approachable, compassionate Father, but He is the creator of the universe and as such, demands our reverence as well.
But the main point: EVERYONE believes in invisible things to some extent. Whether its the wind, radiation, x-rays, UV rays, or microwaves. And then there are ideas and concepts like love, hate, hope....more things you can't see with your eyes yet you can see the effects of all around and inside of you. And hello?! Gravity! To believe in invisible things... to believe in God... is not crazy...it's really not much of a jump from the things that every human lives under the assumption of without question.
So now my daily aim is to seek comfort, peace, and JOY not in numbers, stats, and doctors, who with advancements in science and technology, change as frequently as hurricane tracks... but to find the good things of life in a God who is unchanging, yet has the power to change the storms of my circumstances and the ones that still sometimes brew inside of me.
Comments
Post a Comment