I see a lot of people on Tuesdays. Rarely are they social visits. Many of them have a serious health challenge they are facing. I find it interesting that I am in position that puts me in contact with them. Sure, it’s what I do, but I suppose I never envisioned myself dealing with people who were continually facing giants.

Some of them surprise me. They know it is about more than the disease; they know it revolves around them and the impact they’re supposed to have.

Brenda is such an example. She had breast cancer. I refuse to call her a “survivor” because that implies she got the crap beat out of her. Like the “survivors” of Hurricane Katrina or the Christmas tsunami in the far east. We don’t consider that type of life much of a life because the survivor is actually a loser.

“I have begun to live, finally.” She states with a rueful smile. “It took the disease to open my eyes and get me out of my comfortable little existence. Now, the things that once hindered me have been dismantled and I’m able to be who I was meant to be and do what I was designed to do.”

I came across the same attitude yesterday while reading in Joshua. Caleb, one of the original scouts Moses sent out, comes to Joshua and states:

Today I am eighty-five years old. I am as strong now as I was when Moses sent me on that journey, and I can still travel and fight as well as I could then. So give me the hill country that the Lordpromised me. You will remember that as scouts we found the descendants of Anak living there in great, walled towns. But if the Lord is with me, I will drive them out of the land, just as the Lord said.”

So Joshua blessed Caleb son of Jephunneh and gave Hebron to him as his portion of land. Hebron still belongs to the descendants of Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite because he wholeheartedly followed the Lord, the God of Israel. (Joshua 14:10-14)

The Anak were giants. Big dudes. This eighty-five year old said, “So?” He’d seen what God could do and was ready to take them on. I like this part: “Hebron still belongs to the descendants of Caleb.” Decades after the event, the fact that this eighty-five year old went out, kicked some serious giant butt and took control of the entire region still amazed people. He wholeheartedly followed the Lord. Just like Brenda.

I hate cancer. It is a cruel giant. I hate all disease and the way it debilitates its victims. It is the Anak of life, the undefeatable obstacle that robs all pretense of joy.

But I love the Calebs–the Brendas–I’m privileged to attend. They are giant slayers. As Brenda said, rising from her chair to leave my office, “nothing is impossible for me now, don’t you agree?”

I probably do . . .