I have wrestled with spiritual questions a good deal as the nurse bearing witness to my patients’ stories over the years. In that, I have often wondered about the intricacies of how my patients’ families process their experience of significant illness in a loved one.
This year, with my own breast cancer diagnosis, I learned firsthand what it was like to have to wrestle deeply in my own embodied soul with serious illness. As I finished up radiation and transitioned into long-term hormone therapy, I wrote a series of blog posts for my church about my spiritual wrestlings. Can I still trust God in the midst of this suffering that I never asked for? Why do I still believe He is good? What really is my foundation in life – and in death?
Is the blessing of God only on those who have good health?
This blog post, ‘When God Says No,’ is the first in this three-part series on ‘Blessed are Those With and Without a Cancer Diagnosis.’ The next two posts in this series will be released in the next couple of weeks.
Little did I know that after I finished writing this series, my husband would suffer a severe spinal cord injury in late July that could have left him permanently paralyzed or dead. The past month with him in recovery from emergent surgery and subsequent rehab, in light of this past year for our family, has once again put to test my conviction of the truths I write about in this series.
I am deeply comforted to know that the truths still stand, even as my family continues to weather very difficult storms with our medical crises this year.
You can read the first in this series here:
The Heart of Nursing 