3030 Manhood

I briefly remember getting the news when I was 7 years old that my mother had been diagnosed with cancer. At that age things don’t ever seem to matter much. I remember thinking “moms sick” and “she will get better soon”. I remember the day that I was told, my parents pulled me from elementary school and sat me and my sister down and explained to us that mom had cancer. I remember getting constant meals from friends and then before I knew it I remember my mother being healthy again. After she was cured of this stage 2 breast cancer, she was placed on a drug that typically lasts over a five years span. Being the over achiever and determined woman she is she decided to double that and do it for ten. Spring of 2021 was when she took her last pill of that medicine and had been officially ten years cancer free. In the fall of 2021 during her typical scans that she has continued to have the doctors thought they found something… a mass. They did many tests and had many eyes look over it and it came back as nothing. This was great and an answer from the Lord. Her incredible doctor (Dr. Jolly) was not ever fully comfortable with simply leaving this as is. He wanted to do a biopsy to have that confirmed peace of mind that it truly was nothing. My mother had her biopsy on Tuesday, February 1. I received the call on Thursday of that week from my mother, the tone that I heard in her voice was the exact tone I remember hearing 11 years ago. She began to tell me that the doctors had just diagnosed her with stage IV metastatic bone cancer. I was shocked to say the least. I hung up the phone and looked at my wall in my college dorm for a few seconds and said out loud to myself “oh my gosh what have I done”. What I meant by this “oh my gosh what have I done” was that I came to the realization in that moment that the way that I had been living and the way that I treated my relationship with the Lord was not at all what we are called as Christians to do. I had spent the last 18 years of my life “walking the walk”, having a “deep” relationship with the Lord, going to college, and “being a man” (aka doing the BARE minimum). This was it though… I could think of these things and truly only these things. I began to realize that I have been given EVERY single opportunity in this world, I have been blessed beyond any measure or comparison and yet I have still chosen to sit back and be “comfortable”. I’ve been asked many times over the past 4 days “how do you feel” “are you ok” and “how can I help”. When I hear these questions I can’t help but almost smile because I want to just shout to them and tell them this revelation I have had in my life. I have just been told some of the hardest news that I have heard in my life, my mother, my rock, my nucleus has just been diagnosed with such a difficult thing. But through that God has shown me that we get one opportunity in this life… ONE, and it is our divine responsibility to use that opportunity to further His kingdom and radiate the light of the world. Through 3030 manhood I believe that Jesus Christ has given me the responsibility and the authority to spread his truth to other men and women around me. Proverbs 30:30 says ” the lion, which is mightiest among beasts and does not turn back before any;”. Jesus was a true 30:30 man, a man who was a mighty fighter and did not give up on any, and through this blog and this new aspiration to spread this great news I believe and I pray that men need to begin to live as “3030” men, being mighty warriors for God, and not turning back before any others but rather putting all others above themselves.