The Sender: A Story About When Right Words Make All The Difference

by Kevin Elko

But I learned a lesson: it’s not about what happens to you. Rather it’s about keeping your vision, working toward it with everything you have, and encouraging others. Lifting others up.

Expect more. Play harder and expect more. Let your play show that you expect more. Let your dreams show that you expect more.

What’s to be afraid of is getting paralyzed by fear and dying in the middle. We all die in the end. Just don’t die in the middle. I want to tell you what I’ve told you so many times. Don’t waste your cancer. The world has opened up to you. Your heart has opened up to many other people because of your cancer. So I want you after this to go tell people, we all die at the end. Just don’t die in the middle.

My wife, Karen, has a beautiful line, “Be where your feet are.” Just be where you are right now and forget everything else. Focus on now. Be where your feet are. Let it be.

Let it be. Be where your feet are and go on to the next play. There are forces and powers and plays that will go on tonight that you have no control over. The only thing you can control is where your feet are. Be where your feet are.

She’s a professional speaker and her message is very simple: “My wounds healed a long time ago. Go heal yours.” Forgive. Resentment is taking poison and expecting someone else to get sick.

My forgiveness strategy is easy. I just close my eyes and say, “Send them peace.” I even sometimes send them a gift. I sometimes send like a fancy pen or something like that. Sometimes I send them a book.

He remembered that in one of those letters the Sender encouraged him to ask God to make him as big and strong as an oak tree. He had him visualize the tree in all its fullness and detail. He created a beautiful tree in his mind and he believed that God would deliver it.

I want to talk about fighting weary. It’s easy to fight when we are fresh. But how you have success in parenting, success in business, success with our health, overcoming the condition of cancer, is we learn how to fight weary.

Cancer, Charlie, will box itself out if you keep fighting weary and you survive the assault. Here comes your opponent’s assault. But it was just an assault. It wasn’t a victory. Your energy stayed even. That’s the point. Your energy stayed steady. Survive the assault.

Fight weary. Don’t just work the cut, but keep working the cut and survive the assault. Cancer has an assault to it. Parenting has an assault to it. Every relationship has an assault to it. You survive the assault and you stay steady and you stay even so people don’t even know you are in an assault.

When you start to feel tired and when you start to feel frustrated, it’s a sign that you are getting close. People misread the tiredness sign and they think it means, “I’m far away; I’m not making progress.” No. It’s the dark before dawn. You are getting close. So you tel...

Here’s what I want you to do after today. I want you to keep on thinking about what are the steps involved with winning. Not the results of winning. I want you to keep on thinking about the steps of beating cancer. Not the results of beating cancer. I’m eating very healthy, my nutrition is right, I’m exercising, I’m daily experiencing peace. The results will take care of themselves.

Stay on the process. The product will take care of itself.

“Someday soon the inevitable is coming to all of us.

You have to start saying, “It is well.” So your spirit can hear you say, “It is well.” Then your spirit starts telling your body, “It is well.” And your body gets confused and says, “I think we are well.” You know what? Everybody expects cancer patients to crack. But surprise, it’s well. I know that people are expecting me to just quit on bad situations, walk out of this job, walk out of all this. But surprise! It is well. I know people are expecting me to be so nervous that I couldn’t function. It is well. No matter what happens, pause and say, “It is well.”

When you have cancer you don’t feel like doing much. You have to choose to do things. You don’t feel like monitoring your attitude; you have to choose it. You don’t feel like drinking liquids, you have to choose to. You don’t feel like being nice to your visitors, you have to choose to. It’s all about choosing despite how you feel.

“Live in the vision or live in the circumstances, you choose.”

“Vision or circumstances. It’s your choice.”

So they went home and listened to a positive mental attitude recording, three times a day, three times a day for four years. It was a recording of affirmations of them winning the race.

When a reporter asked the captain if he was surprised, the captain just looked at him. He said, “Surprised about what?” “About winning the race,” the reporter replied. The captain surprised the reporter with this reply. He said, “We already won it five thousand times. What’s the big deal?” They’d already won that race five thousand times in their minds. You either live in vision or you live in circumstance.

Every day I want you to take time to see yourself in complete health. Vital. Strong. Keep on seeing it and I want you to chant this as you chant that God has a plan for you. Let’s add a second part. “Therefore, I will live in vision, not in circumstance.”

Listen to me carefully: winning has nothing to do with football. Winning has to do with fighting in the trenches with your brothers. Focusing every single fiber of your being on your job and having your brothers’ backs.

I want you to keep saying, “We can play this in our vision, or we can play this in the circumstances.” You see, boys, I learned that lesson in the last few months, vision or circumstances. Every day I was in chemo I had to make a choice: live in the vision or live in the circumstances. I chose the vision. I did not feel like living in the vision—I felt like collapsing and giving up. But I chose the vision, and now I’m here. Tonight, I want you to choose the vision. That crowd out there, they think it’s their job to get in your head. Vision or circumstances. Choose vision. The radio and media—circumstances. Choose vision. The big-name opponent—circumstances. Choose vision. Stay on the vision.”

Life can change in moments.

Let’s start over. And let’s focus on one simple thing. I heard a story I’d like to share. In Africa . . .” he began, and the boys seemed to settle down. “In an African country there was a tribe of people in which all the parents had been wiped out by AIDS. The grandparents had to raise the babies, and they were at the end of their rope. The government was overwhelmed by the health crisis, and there was little help at hand, so they were all alone and had to figure it out themselves. The problem was that there was absolutely nothing they could do. Nothing. As elders gathered to discuss their endless problems, one of the men stood and addressed the crowd. “We have no hope, and there is nothing any one of us here can do. So whenever I see any of you in the street from now on, I’m not going to say, ‘How are you?’ I’m going to say, simply, ‘I’m strong if you’re strong. Are you strong?’ and you are going to respond, ‘I’m strong.’”

“Boys, when you get down in the next half, lift one another’s arms and say, ‘I’m strong if you’re strong. Are you strong?’” And the boys in that locker room replied as a unit, “I’m strong!”

There’s the one in us that wants to love strangers. Give to charity. And there’s the one that wants to judge and gossip. Which twin emerges when you lose, Coach? Which twin emerges when somebody does something and it’s really their own kind of pettiness? Which one emerges when you are tired?

Well, the twin that emerges is the one you feed. Whatever you feed grows. Whatever you starve dies. It’s real easy. Whichever twin you feed grows. Feed the right twin.

If you feed yourself scripture and you pray for love to come into your heart and you are actively kind to others, the twin that loves grows. If you hang around with a bunch of other people that are doing negative or illegal things and you a...

Let me tell you the difference between choosing and feeling. I’ve tried to share so many things with you over the last few months. I’ve given you mantras, homework, stories, and advice. You have to choose to do them. You won’t feel like doing them, you have to choose to do them. We’ve learned about winning on three levels, the spiritual, the physical, and the relational. You have to choose to do that. You may feel like being bitter, but you have to choose to be better. You may feel like living in the circumstance, but you have to choose to live in the vision. You may feel like giving up but you have to choose to fight weary. You may not feel like being kind but you have to choose to be a blessing. Same with forgiveness, being ...

We’ve laughed and learned, been tested and challenged. Hope it helped. Now get me that ring! And remember that I love you and that you’ll be tested and that you’ll pass th...

Wanna know the best speech I ever read? It was when Moses spoke to the Israelites before they went into the Promised Land. It was his very last speech. “Placed in front of you is life and death,” he said. “Choose life.” Bam! I don’t know where you are right now, Charlie, but there’s the whole story! Moses’s final speech. Placed in front of Charlie Cristo is life and death. Choose. Placed in front of me is love and darkness every day. Choose love. Placed in front of you and me, Charlie, is faith and fear .

And finally to my best friend, Coach Chuck Pagano: that you chose me—or God chose us—to go your cancer journey together is something that will be stored away in my heart like a treasure until the grand day that God calls me home.