A while back I was reading in the book of Hosea about how God promised to “transform the Valley of Trouble into a gateway of hope” and I thought of my friend Lauren. His cancer journey has been an incredible roller coaster with hopes dashed one minute and unexpected new hopes found the …
Category: faith
Oct 05
Guaranteed to Survive?
“To what do you attribute your survival?” That was the question posed to me by a newly diagnosed cancer patient in the office when I was working as a patient advocate. He was just a little younger than me and undergoing chemo for “my” kind of cancer so we had a kind of special bond. …
Sep 28
Flying by the Seat of Your Pants?
I’ve read that an eagle, like many other animals, can sense a storm before it arrives. So the eagle flies to a high spot and waits for the inevitable winds. When the storm hits, the eagle sets its wings so that the wind will pick it up and lift it above the storm. …
Sep 14
Hope is the Thing with Feathers
If you had asked my friend Carollynn what gave her hope throughout her cancer journey, she would have smiled and quickly answered: feathers. She loved Emily Dickinson’s poem “The Thing with Feathers” which begins: Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul, And sings the tune without the words, And …
Aug 31
Don’t Waste Your Cancer
Those are the words penned by author-pastor John Piper on the eve of his surgery for prostate cancer in 2006. Our cancer support group often spent a meeting discussing one of Piper’s ten ways we can “waste” cancer by allowing it—instead of God—to be foremost in our lives. (You can read his wonderful …
Aug 24
When Your World Falls Apart
So where were you when the events of 9/11 unfurled? I bet you know exactly. I vividly remember I was standing in the chemo room at our oncology office chatting with patients when the first plane hit. And if you’re OLD like I am, you recall where you were when President Kennedy was shot …
Jul 20
Really Ticked Off
If you had asked me after my diagnosis whether I was angry about my situation–stage 3 cancer at age 36 with three young daughters and a husband who already had buried his first wife–I would have responded that I was not. After all, it’s not really proper for a Baptist minister’s wife to get …
Jul 13
When you do everything right and it still goes all wrong…
Monday morning started out great–in fact it started out perfect. My husband was fly-fishing for the day, so I wouldn’t feel as if I was ignoring him when I spent the day concentrating on my lengthy to-do list. I had plenty to get accomplished, but I wanted to make sure I started the day right. …
Jun 15
HEALING WORDS
So do retired people go on vacation or is EVERYDAY a vacation day? I think the answer must be BOTH because I’m at the beach relaxing and being refreshed body, mind and spirit. (Sounds like a vacation to me!) While I’m away, here are some of my favorite “healing” verses (all from the New Living Translation …
Jun 01
Becoming the “Ideal Patient”
Are you or your loved one an ideal patient? I’m not asking whether you do everything the doctors tell you to do. I’m not referring to whether your disease is easily treatable. And I’m not talking about whether you have the right personality. What I do mean is this: Do you have the right blend of realism and …
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