What my colonoscopy taught me about stewardship

Recently, I wrote about my cancer diagnosis. In the aftermath of that ordeal, I finally scheduled something I had put off too long: a colonoscopy. It had been 11 years since my last one.

Part of that gap was due to neglect, I suppose. But much of it came from the reality of caregiving. Over the last six years alone, my wife and I have spent nearly 12 months in hospitals. The stretches at home often felt like military logistics.

And since we live about 60 miles from the nearest facility performing colonoscopies, scheduling one is not exactly like stopping by the barbershop.

Truthfully, I was nervous. Not panicked, but uneasy enough to want reassurance that this was one area of my body not planning an uprising. Once you hear the word “cancer,” your imagination suddenly takes on a full-time job.

When we learn to steward our bodies and hearts well, it often spills into our finances, our work, our relationships, and the way we carry responsibility itself.

So there I sat in the curtained pre-op area waiting for the doctor.

As I watched, the curtain beside me kept shifting while he searched for the opening. A hand appeared, disappeared, then the curtain moved again.

After decades of hospitals and surgeries with my wife, I’ve learned something important: If you lose your sense of humor in these places, the fluorescent lighting wins.

So when the doctor finally stepped through the curtain, I said to him in my best Roy D. Mercer impression:

“Look a here ... if you’re havin’ a hard time finding the hole in the curtain, I’m a little concerned about you rootin’ around where you’re about to go.”

He burst out laughing and sheepishly assured me he knew exactly what he was doing. A few minutes later, they wheeled me toward the procedure room.

As we rolled through the doors, I gave the Mercer impression another go:

“Ahhright then ... y’all gonna get to the bottom of this now. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.”

Then, just before they put me under, the doctor answered in his best Larry the Cable Guy voice:

“Let’s get ’er done!”

My last thought before going to sleep was: “How reassuring.”

Thankfully, the procedure went well. I’m good for several more years. I’ve seen moments like that one in hospital rooms, waiting areas, funeral homes, and around kitchen tables where exhausted families carried burdens they never imagined carrying.

Two weeks before the colonoscopy, I was playing the piano for the funeral of a beloved pastor here in Montana. The sanctuary was heavy with grief. Then, while adjusting my music, my sleeve caught the piano lid.

Apparently, the thing had been engineered by the same people who design bear traps. The lid slammed shut with a crack loud enough to wake the dead, which, considering the setting, felt especially unfortunate. The whole congregation jumped. Then, they laughed while I turned the color of a stop sign. And for just a few seconds, in the middle of grief, people breathed again. Not because suffering is funny, but because despair is heavy, and laughter gives weary people enough strength to pick the load back up.

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Somewhere along the way, we started confusing seriousness with rigidity. We became suspicious of humor in hard moments, as if laughter dishonors grief.

I don’t believe that. The older I get, the more I believe humor can be an act of stewardship rather than denial.

It’s not pretending things don’t hurt or making light of tragedy. Just refusing to surrender every corner of the heart to darkness.

Hospitals have a way of distilling what matters. Sitting in waiting rooms, hearing monitors beep through the night, or listening to the wheels of a gurney rattle down a hallway strips away much of the endless noise masquerading as importance in our culture.

You start remembering what matters.

A friend recently asked how I’m approaching decisions about my cancer treatment. My answer was simple: Stewardship will drive this decision. Thankfully, we caught my cancer early enough that I have options. That didn’t happen through panic. It happened through paying attention.

Caregivers are notorious for postponing their own health while tending to everyone else. I’ve certainly done my share of that over the years. But healthy caregivers make better caregivers. Screenings matter, rest is important, and laughter is essential from time to time.

Stewardship rarely stays confined to one corner of life. When we learn to steward our bodies and hearts well, it often spills into our finances, our work, our relationships, and the way we carry responsibility itself.

In a culture consumed with debt, rancor, fraud, and endless outrage, the problems can feel too large and tangled to fix.

But perhaps stewardship still begins the same way it always has: with individuals willing to accept responsibility for what’s right in front of them.

This include our health, families, work, and our other obligations.

Healthy cultures are built the same way healthy lives are: one act of stewardship at a time.