The Next 15 Minutes: Diagnosis

Depending on your circumstances, 15 minutes can seem like a long time. Depending on your age, 15 minutes can feel very short. In October and November of 2018, I experienced both in a half hour span throughout the day. Due to my Leukemia diagnosis and the oncologist's treatment plan involving the blasting of my immune system back to newborn baby levels, I had plenty of "time" on my hands. I'd start my day off listening to entire albums of Lauren Daigle or Johnny Cash followed by reading a chapter of several different books. By 9 AM I was onto word puzzles. Then I'd begin to receive visitors. Oh how wonderful it was to get visitors. I'd stay pretty busy until my arsenic trioxide treatment of a couple of hours knocked me on my back. After that I might watch the crane worker build the parking deck right outside my window. Then the worst would happen. The Sun would go down.

On one hand the days seemed so short but on the other, the nights felt like they dragged on and on. It was at night, I developed the "next 15 minutes" method. I'd pray to God to get me through the next 15 minutes and then we'd talk again. After a while, that method crept into the daylight hours as well. There's only so much you can do on the 7th floor of Huntsville Hospital and if you went to any other floor it wasn't typically a good thing. There were certainly 15 minutes that were easier to get through and some not so much but the point is because of God I did get through it. The question is, "what are you going to do with your next 15 minutes?" I challenge you to use them wisely because they do add up. I'm heading into two years since my diagnosis and sometimes it's hard to even remember those days. As difficult as they were, I don't know that I've ever had a more in-depth relationship with God.

In the next 15 minutes, practice the two greatest commands. Express to God the love that you have for Him. In the next 15 minutes, let Him know your emotions. In the next 15 minutes, text, call or FaceTime someone just to tell them what they mean to you. In the next 15 minutes reassure yourself that God is not bound by our time constraints. Make your next 15 minutes meaningful.

Travis Creasy