As most of you know, I retired from World Vision early this month. I knew it was the right time for several reasons, and we sensed it was the right time for several more. But we never really thought those reasons would be revealed to us so quickly, nor so jarringly.

Janet has just been discovered to have cancer in her colon. We don’t know why—though it’s puzzling that we’ve now both had the same cancer, with no family history of it on either side. But we know she has it, and that it is quite serious–more severe than mine was. Hers has begun the process of spreading… into some neighboring lymph nodes, into her abdominal cavity and both lungs. No other organs seem to be affected, but there may be more assessment tests ahead—this is all very new information in the past 7 days. Her first official oncology appointment is tomorrow, but the doctor says that by all appearances it’s at Stage IV.

Humanly speaking, the news is devastating. Most of our friends and family had little inkling of potential problems and are understandably in shock.

Yet Janet’s spirits are buoyant at this point. The future is now a dark cave we’re peering into, and there will be no easy options. We are certainly experiencing low moments and tears; we hold each other a lot; we sit quietly or reminisce on our patio. As news slowly goes out, we’re continually blessed and encouraged by messages of support and prayer and even heartbreak. But we are not in despair, not shaking a fist at God, not begging God for a miraculous healing–though we welcome those prayers and will eagerly accept one!

Each day we’ve asked ourselves why we share this demeanor. I’d say there are two reasons.

First, we had a sense something was happening with Janet’s health. For the past year or more she’s been dealing with odd symptoms that felt increasingly ominous to me… to the point that I asked several friends to pray for her colonoscopy last week. We didn’t think the issue would be in her colon, but we knew this first season after retirement would be one of health discovery, so we didn’t make plans to rush out on a trip, etc. In fact, when people asked us about our big post-retirement plans, we felt completely comfortable not having a plan (which is not very typical of Agenda Trenda nor his bride!). We simply wanted a break and felt the future would be revealed to us in the coming months. This is certainly not the assignment we were looking for from God, but when the news came, it felt like the unveiling of our next chapter.

Second and more importantly, the past 18 months have felt like a complete celebration of our lives, together and individually. Ever since Janet suggested we consider the year leading up to our 50th wedding anniversary as our Year of Jubilee, we’ve experienced an almost absurd number and variety of blessings. We’ve taken memorable vacations, attended both our 50th high school reunions, had our 50th anniversary this February and gathered our whole clan around us in March to celebrate, all the way down to our great-grandchildren. Janet had written an autobiographical ‘book’ [yippee for StoryWorth!] and she surprised the family with copies. Then in May, thanks to generous friends Janet joined me on a fantastic final World Vision trip to Zambia, and both of our mid-career children spent the time and money to travel with us–their first Vision Trip!–even arriving on Mother’s Day. During the trip, we were surprised to have a water well dedicated to Janet and me and our family, complete with a wonderful village celebration. The three months leading to my retirement saw a series of celebratory gatherings with colleagues and supporters from around the nation. I had chances to speak and write to encourage those still fighting the good fight. A final celebration dinner turned into a weekend kidnapping by two of our dearest friends, couples whose husbands joined World Vision in the early 1980’s as I had. And my team presented us with a Memory Book where a huge percentage of the entries also mentioned Janet and her impact on them and on my work.

So, we went into retirement feeling almost guilty about the amount of blessing God was pouring out onto both of us. We said to each other, and continue to say, that we’ve experienced the breadth of life of people decades older than us, and that everything from this point on is just “icing on the cake.” We each admitted to secretly thinking: If this were a Hollywood movie, we’d go down in an airplane or find out that one of us is terminally ill.

In no way do we see this as a sick joke from God—just the opposite. We talked about all this again today and marveled at how we seem to have been watching God build an incredible scaffolding of sustaining grace all around us during the past eighteen months.

So now, how shall we respond? When we finished absorbing Janet’s CT scan results this week, we let out a heavy sigh and said, “Blessed be the name of the Lord.” Then we walked to the piano and sang the Matt Redmond song by the same name… and went out to play our morning bocce ball game together. Janet beat me.

A pastor in this area used to teach about finding your “Kingdom Assignment.” How are we feeling? Like we’ve just received our next assignment, given from the hand of a God who loves Janet, loves us both, and who let us watch as that same loving God constructed an elaborate scaffold of sustaining grace to carry us through whatever comes next.

Cory (& Janet)

July 2023

PS: Next week we intend to set up a way to provide updates and easy two-way communication. I’ll certainly let you know. We covet your acts of concern and love, and your prayers—especially for accurate tests and wisdom in the choices to be made.