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2007-08-07 issue:

Cancer lessons

Editorial

by Gordon Houser

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I am with you always.—Matthew 28:20

We are the Lord’s.—Romans 14:8

Last November, when Jeanne, my wife, was diagnosed with cancer of the thymus gland, we entered a journey we did not choose, yet we continue to learn the truth that God is with us in all circumstances.



As we told people the news of her diagnosis, their reactions varied. Some expressed concern tinged with fear. Some offered advice on what to do to fight it.

But most said they would pray for us, and many sent emails, letters and cards. Others offered help in tangible ways—meals, hugs, financial help. Jeanne’s co-workers and her employer have supported her in many ways.

One lesson from this journey has been that we are surrounded by people who care, who pray for us. This experience helps us see that love is the air we breathe; it is what keeps us going.
I’ve also learned that we daily face the choice between responding to our circumstances with fear or with love. The more I trust that God is present with us, the less I fear. As 1 John 4:18 says, “There is no fear in love.”

When people confront events like cancer, they often feel a need to find some reason for it. Jeanne must have done something wrong, eaten the wrong foods or failed to exercise properly. Besides being unhelpful, this response makes little sense. Her habits have been better than many who don’t have cancer. She also encountered other cancer patients who, for example, never smoked a day in their lives yet developed lung cancer.

Others insist God must have some purpose in this. Perhaps, but I don’t believe God caused this cancer for our good. Rather, I believe it just happened, just as much more awful things happen every day, and that God walks with us. Our task, as it were, is to develop awareness of this reality of God’s presence.

And God’s presence means that each moment is to be lived in that awareness. I’m not to put off sensing God’s presence until after we hear the results of the latest CT scan or when Jeanne’s nausea diminishes. That Presence is present each moment.

Early on, when friends asked me how I was doing, I said, “I’m living one day at a time.” That is a cliché perhaps, yet it has become a necessary way to cope, to live on this journey.

Cancer teaches us we have little control over our lives. We have to live with what is. Certainly there are things we can do. For example, Jeanne cut way back on sugar, which feeds cancer, and changed her diet in other ways. She has taken many other steps to strengthen her immune system. Yet, we learn, there are no guarantees.

I have learned the power of sympathy. Many have said to me, “The spouse of the person with cancer often gets neglected.” One man in my church committed himself to pray particularly for me. This means much to me. However, when I talk with other spouses of cancer patients, I feel an immediate sympathy. I feel understood in ways others cannot offer.

Jeanne had a similar experience as she talked with other cancer patients while receiving chemo treatments. I watched them interact and marveled at the immediate camaraderie of strangers.

Last winter, Jeanne’s cousin Diane paid for Diane’s brother Dave, who has a ministry of healing prayer, to travel to Kansas from Mississippi to pray with us for Jeanne’s healing.
While his style of praying is different from mine, I felt greatly loved and strengthened by his prayer. He said, “I pray in hope. I’m going to keep hoping to my grave.” It’s not right, he said, to deny people hope.

Some who heard about Jeanne’s cancer said, “How do you keep going?” You just do. It does no good to despair. You go on in hope, living in God’s presence. For “we are the Lord’s.”

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