LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF

Mark 12:28-31

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating.  Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?" "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.  Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and strength.  The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."

Today, God showed me a picture of this passage.  I’m emotionally weary, so the story will be the condensed version… but I’m hoping God will fill in the gaps in your imagination so you’ll see it the way I see it.

We were supposed to be up early on this Saturday morning heading to a family wedding in south Georgia.  I woke up before the alarm, and came downstairs to have some quiet time before the hectic morning began.  I had just sat down with my coffee when a text came in from Keaton’s mom.  She was already IN south Georgia.  The text simply instructed me to call her when I was awake.  I dialed immediately.  Based on the ridiculous hour and the feeling in my gut… I already knew.  It was Keaton. 

He was having seizures and was being medically-transported back to Atlanta.  (No sirens on this transport… only the heavy blades of a helicopter to announce the urgency.)

After a full day in the ER, and more tests… the doctors simply confirm what we already know.  We need new drugs.  The old ones are past their expiration date… so to speak.  New cancer drugs are hard to come by, so please pray accordingly.  We have a clinical trial starting in nine days.  Pray those days go quickly and that the new meds swing a big stick.

Little Kylie had a hard day too.  She’s back in the hospital for another round of chemo.  She’s doing this round with a little more experience and a lot less hair... experience that we don’t want and hair that we do.  Ugh.

Last summer, Kylie prayed hard for Keaton.  Since her diagnosis… Keaton has prayed hard for Kylie.

At day’s end… Keaton was moved from the ER to a room on the Aflac Cancer Ward at Scottish Rite.  Guess who’s in the room NEXT to his?  Kylie. 

They’re neighbors.  They’re praying for each other.  Kylie has been praying for Keaton all day through her waves of extreme nausea.  Their moms gave each other an understanding hug in the hallway.

And me?  I’m just weepy at the evidence that God goes before us.

It’s a really big hospital.  There are unfortunately A LOT of kids in Atlanta with cancer.  The two I love are neighbors tonight.  And they’ve been praying for each other.  Neither focused on themselves.  I think they get Mark 12:31.

Go and do likewise.

Tar Heels, Blue Devils, and the Easter Bunny

One of Keaton’s older brothers is currently getting a free ride through college because he can throw a football approximately 4 miles... and thread a needle with it.  The University of North Carolina came knocking on the Coker family’s door and the coaches took our boy up to Chapel Hill.  We were happy for him, but were also left with a bit of a quandary.  You see, we’d always been Blue Devil fans.  We like Duke.  They play round ball in Durham, and their coach is a fine member of the Long Gray Line.  We cheer for West Point grads around our house.  Coach K is the reason we’ve always worn our blue a few shades darker than the Carolina blue of UNC.  These two shades of blue are NOT compatible.  Not at all.  Anybody who knows anything about sports knows THAT.

But NOW, there’s a UNC jersey with the name “Coker” on the back.  Number 11.  And our loyalty is being tested.  We love our nephew, so we’ve been wearing lots of that “Carolina blue” lately around our house. (It’s actually more like Powder Blue, but they don’t like it when you point that out…)  And just as we were finishing our detox of all things Blue Devil, the story goes and takes another turn.

Keaton is about to graduate from Flowery Branch High School, and apparently he’s about to graduate from his current team of doctors at Egleston and Johns Hopkins as well.  They’ve been a great team, and we’re grateful for them… but our boy has gone and become a man.  He dwarfs his doctors, and the little plastic chairs in the Pediatric waiting room no longer provide a stable base for his physique.  So it’s time for us to play at the next level.

You’d think the world of medicine would work a whole lot differently than the world of major college football – but from my observations, the two have a lot in common.  Keaton is being recruited.  And we need to decide what color jersey he’s going to wear.  Cancer hospitals aren’t so different from major colleges in the way they recruit.  It's hard to get their attention at first, but once they find out ANOTHER hospital is looking at you... they get more aggressive in their recruiting.

Sloan-Kettering in New York would like to have Keaton.  But they’re yankees… and that makes me think of THE Yankees.  Wrong sport.  And we don’t really like pinstripes.  Let’s face it, they’re not very manly.  Sloan-Kettering will have to up their offer to entice us to wear pinstripes.

MD Anderson in Texas would like to have Keaton.  Longhorns.  Not a bad option truthfully.  They have good steaks and cowboy boots there.  We really like big steaks - and what's better than a great pair of western boots?  But really… who looks good in that awful Burnt Orange of the Longhorns?  Serious drawback.

Then there’s the place in California.  I think it’s San Francisco.  Keaton is sporting longer hair these days and it's a great shade of brown.  He also looks great, from time to time, as a bald man.  But blonde?  I just don’t see it.  California needs to sweeten their offer before we turn our O-Lineman into a Surfer Dude.

Did I mention Duke yet?  Yep.  The Blue Devils are in the hunt.  They’ve offered some serious cancer smackdown talk and have promised moxi with their clinical trials.  If you've followed this blog, … you know that we’re fans of moxi in our family.  I’m also lobbying for them to throw in some basketball tickets at Cameron Indoor for Aunt Marybeth… but so far, they haven’t taken that bait.  It’s really the only missing component.  We’d probably have a deal otherwise.

Emory isn’t taking all this transfer talk laying down, mind you.  They tell us they actually HAVE an adult wing on their campus.  (Who knew?) They are scrambling to come up with a counter offer.  It’s too early to discuss publicly, and our agent has sworn us to secrecy… but Emory is huddled up trying to entice us to stay with a promising clinical trial of their own.  Our interest is piqued, but they’re moving slow and we’re attracted to speed.

Decisions.  Decisions.  So many great Cancer Hospitals.  We’re thankful to HAVE options to evaluate.  Keaton’s last workout for the medical staff of each of those hospitals went great.  (Translation… his PET scan revealed that his brain cancer is still contained in the brain.  It hasn’t spread to his spine or any other parts of his body that we are deeming OUT OF BOUNDS.  That makes him more marketable.)

At the moment, we’re leaning toward the royal blue of Blue Devil Nation… so what in the world will we do with all those powder blue shirts?  How can we possibly have a Coker in each place?  

Then there’s the matter of the mascots.  Nobody outside the state of North Carolina REALLY knows what a Tar Heel IS exactly… but we pretend that we do.  I know the history, so spare me the informative emails.  But have you taken a close LOOK at the mascot that is supposed to represent that rich history?  I don’t get it.

And for that matter… what exactly is a BLUE devil?  Is it just a devil that pitched a toddler tantrum and held his breath till he turned blue?  That doesn’t seem worthy of Keaton’s calm, cool demeanor to me.

So I’m proposing a solution.  Let’s just create a mascot called the Tar Devil.  Maybe Joel Chandler Harris would lend us the image of the Tar Baby.  Close enough if we add horns. 

My kids love that story.  But all good stories about the Tar Baby have to include a rabbit.  Turns out… ours does.  Hold on and I’ll connect the dots for you.

Last summer, I had the privilege of leading a small group “Mother/Daughter” Bible Study.  God definitely has a sense of humor as I am personally devoid of BOTH of those qualifying components.  My mom has been in heaven for over four decades now… which is longer than she was ever on the earth.  And my house is teeming with testosterone.  Not a pink thing in sight with my husband and two sons.  Nevertheless, these mothers and daughters – and me – circled up and studied scripture together.  It was awesome.

The youngest daughter in the room was a little girl named Kylie… not yet a teenager, but close.  She took notes and leaned in and hugged me a lot.  Good grief, I was a goner.  That girl had me wrapped around her little finger in about two seconds flat.  Each time we gathered to study the bible, we also prayed for Keaton.  These girls didn’t know Keaton personally – as many of you don’t.  But over the summer, they became part of Keaton’s Warriors.

A month or so ago, Kylie’s knee started hurting.  Inconceivably, a slight limp has turned into a cancer diagnosis.  She’s in the early rounds of treatment.  Her hospital room is filled with stuffed animals – courtesy of shocked and grieving friends who haven’t yet wrapped their heads around this fight.  Of all of the stuffed animals, Kylie’s favorite is a soft cuddly rabbit approximately the size of herself.

On Friday, while Keaton was saying farewell to his pediatric team at Emory – he decided to stop by and visit Kylie.  They’d never met, but kids with cancer understand each other like no one else can.  

Keaton is a class act.  He wants to devote his life to ministry… not really the preaching kind, - just the kind where you meet people where they are and point their focus UP.  I’d say his career has officially begun.  I think it's poetic that it began Easter weekend.  And THAT'S the story of our journey through Tar Heels, Blue Devils, and the Easter Bunny.

If you’d like to expand your prayer life as you continue to pray for Keaton, we’d love for you to add Kylie to your list.  You can follow her story at:

http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/kyliemyers

We’ll keep you posted as we head in a new direction for Keaton’s treatment, but I’m liking the Tar Devils.  Keep wearing those gray bracelets, and remember to PRAY FOR KEATON!