When Cancer is a Spiritual Crossroads, I didn’t give my faith much thought until cancer forced me to. Some find God in their diagnosis. Some lose Him altogether. I have learned that both are valid, and the trip from one to the other is rarely straightforward.
When the physician first said “cancer,” my knee-jerk reaction was to pray. It quickly occurred to me that I didn’t know what I was asking for. (A miracle? Strength? Understanding?) In those first few weeks, I swung through despair and anger and ultimately came to a tentative hope. What surprised me most was the awareness that prayer and meditation are not just spiritual activities, but have measurable effects on our well-being.
Science has shown they take away anxiety, lessen our perceived sensitivity to pain, and even improve blood infection resistance. Whether by divine intervention or by the power of our own minds to focus on our health, I no longer need to know. The consolation is real, anyway.Paragraph 3: Those questions come at three in the morning when it is impossible to sleep. Why me? Why now? If this is a suffering with any meaning, what could its purpose possibly be? I have wrestled with those questions until I was exhausted, and I can share what I have learned: that there are times when valid answers cannot be found.
Each religious system has its respective answers. Some see disease as a test. Others consider it serendipitous in an imperfect world. Others consider it an opportunity for growth. My Buddhist friend talks about the inevitability of suffering that is the nature of life. My Christian neighbor believes that God is with her in the valley. The peace they find in their respective understandings has freed me of judging which is the “right” way.
There were nights—so many nights—that I totally lost my sense of meaning. The treatments took from me not only my hair and energy, but the certainties I had held regarding everything I believed. Spiritual teachers call these the “nights of the soul,” and it was helpful to know that there is a name for this particular emptiness. I was not losing my mind; I was losing a self that was old, outworn, and burning out, and that something new might therefore come from the ashes.
My hospital chaplain came to visit me in my first long stay. It was with difficulty that I did not send her away, but I am glad I did not. She sought neither to force religion on me nor to offer me stale platitudes. She simply sat with me in my fear and uncertainty. This is what good spiritual counselors do. They allow you the room you need for whatever you are experiencing, without trying to fix or redirect it. They understand that rage against God can also be a form of praying.
I have found that the small rites give unexpected solace. Lighting a candle before each treatment. Taking communion when I am well enough to go to church. My nonreligious friends have their own rites—taking particular kinds of light music, having their journals, and arranging flowers. These rites help mark time and create pockets of sacred intention amidst chaos.
Nature has taken the place of my cathedral. When I am well enough, I spend the hours outdoors studying the birds. There is a profundity about seeing life continue, no matter how great the personal crisis in which I may be involved. The trees do not cease growing because I am afflicted with cancer. The seasons do not miss. This used to irritate me; now it soothes. I am part of something much greater than my own suffering.
My gratitude feels impossible at first. Be grateful for cancer? No. But grateful for the sunset I saw because treatment slowed me up? Yes. Grateful for the friends who came? Absolutely. This practice of finding small things to be “thankful” for has not lessened the disease, but it has given me further motives for continuing in the battle.
I have also had to meet the spectral army more directly than I ever wished to do. What is going to happen hereafter? I still do not know, but I have accepted my restlessness there. Whether there is heaven, reincarnation, or simply a rest, I am learning to trust that whatever comes will be “all right.” Some days I am more disposed to put confidence in that truism than others.
Cancer has been many things—terrible, agonizing, isolating—but unexpectedly, it has been spiritually transmuting too. Not in a simple self-satisfying “all things are for the best” way, but in the assurance that faith does not mean answers. It means to be open to mystery, to be finding meaning wherever possible, and to accept Grace in whatever guise it may be thus manifested.
