 March/April 2001 (XXXIX 2) |
Many have been through crises like, or worse than, what my family and I have been experiencing. When my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer a few months ago it felt like the roof caved in on our life. But I write now not seeking sympathy, nor (I hope) expressing a false sense of confidence; yet also feeling a need to share the surprising lessons of faith I am learning on a journey I would rather not be taking.
When we first got this news our reaction was shock, fear and anger. Gretchen had no risk factors, and yet was one of the one-percent of women who contract this disease before age 45. How could this be? We felt like someone knocked the wind out of us. It took days just to breathe again. Then we saw we had to face the circumstances, and seek the best treatment we could find, hoping for the best.
As we moved on, however, the fear and sadness was never very far below the surface for me. What was Gretchen facing? How difficult would the treatments be? What would all this do to our family? If the treatments didn’t work as they should, what would that mean for our girls — especially our little one?
It would have been easy to focus on, and be consumed by, the anger, the sadness and the fear. For me, especially the fear. That is where I started. But then a strange thing happened. In the midst of all this, I found myself seeing the things I was grateful for.
First, I was grateful we found this relatively early, deeply grateful to Gretchen for doing regular self-exams (which is why she found it early), and grateful she went to her doctor immediately to seek help. I was grateful to have health insurance that made it possible to get good care right away. Awful as the news was, I was grateful to have it explained plainly, so we could seek the treatment we needed. But that is just the beginning!
As soon as we began to let people know what was happening, a flood of love and support came pouring in. Gretchen has been active in our neighborhood, community and Meeting, trying to be helpful to others in many ways since the day we arrived. People know and love her; and the outpouring of support — of prayers, offers to help, meals, care for our children, and on and on — has been amazing.
Beyond the PYM staff, Friends from around PYM, colleagues from my academic and professional circles, and family and friends of every sort have offered words of wisdom, any kind of help we need, and their prayers. We are being prayed for by evangelicals, Catholics and Quakers, by friends (and friends of friends) from all over. For this I am so thankful words cannot begin to explain.
What is most amazing though, at least to me, is the discovery of the power of gratitude as an agent of healing and hope. The most profound insight in this for me is about how the gratitude itself is such a blessing! I have discovered that when I pay attention I can see so much to be thankful for I don’t have very much time or energy left to be fearful. (A little still, but not very much.) I find myself wondering: Do others experience gratitude as such a gift?
I am not naïve. I know the danger Gretchen still faces. Yet in the outpouring of caring, empathy and prayer we are experiencing, I feel deeply the truth that Paul proclaims when he writes that “neither life nor death, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God.” I have come to see that when we step forward to care for one another in any of the travails of life, we can make the love of God real to others in ways that are so powerful! I wonder how the life of our Meetings might be changed if more of us experienced this more deeply?
I hope beyond hope that my wife will experience a full recovery, and all my daughters will get to grow up with their mom. I cannot know that for sure, but I realize now I could not be sure of that before.
What I know for sure is how gratitude itself is, for me, a gift. I recognize that some of the things I am so grateful for some others do not have — loving family and good friends, a caring community, health insurance. I wonder how much the privileges of my life before this (and now) have given me this perspective?
Yet, I also know a number of people who have had far harder lives than I, and still seem to live in gratitude. That challenges me even more profoundly! It makes me wonder if it is not the case that — at least to some degree — most of us can choose to be grateful for whatever good things we find in our lives; or we can focus on what we are missing.
Does faith begin with, or grow from, a basic realization that life is a gift, in all its ups and downs, in all its celebrations and trials? Might it be the case, then, that gratitude is a basic stance of faith?
What I know is, with all the uncertainty before us, seeing life as a gift is something I can choose to do. And I do so now with enormous gratitude to all of you who, demonstrating God’s love for my family and me in this time of trial, help me do so. Thanks to God and all of you!
Last modified: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 at 08:18 AM