Lane’s Story: Doing business in the University of Cancer

What would you do if you knew you didn’t have a lot of time left?

Would you still care about how much was in the bank or how the stock market was performing this week? Would you still worry about what type of car you drove or the cashmere content of your sports coat?

These are the questions Lane Kramer started asking himself in the weeks after he learned he had an aggressive form of Liver and Pancreatic cancer. He listened, as Doctors told him that most people with this type of cancer are not expected to live for more than a year.

Before he heard the word, “cancer,” Lane was on top of the mountain. He had a successful career, thriving ministry, loving family, and an excess of friends. But in the matter of a few moments, he found himself falling 21,000 feet down, to the bottom of the valley.

That one word changed his entire world. Surprisingly, what Lane would tell you, is that not all of those changes were bad.

While faith had always played a central role in Lane’s life, the diagnosis took his relationship with God to a new level.

Lane had created a career out of teaching and mentoring other businessmen and women, not only giving them skills to grow their companies but also showing them how they could live out their faith at work every day. He thrived on helping others uncover how their faith could actually change the way they ran their business and interacted with their customers. But now, Lane was learning how to do this in his own life.

Instead of worrying about his bottom line, Lane started to think about what kind of legacy he would be leaving behind. He focused his priorities on loving God and loving others, making every day count.

“Now I've clearly understood what clear riches are,” he says, “which is our relationship with God, it's loving our family, loving our friends, serving other people, and just the preciousness of life every day.”

“Getting up in the morning and saying, ‘God, I'm still here. What's your purpose for me today? Let's get to work.’”