Hungry for Peace
In March of 1997, I was diagnosed with cancer. At first I was frightened. I was attending a large church in the suburbs of Houston, TX and was enrolled in a large Sunday School class at the time and my church and my class tried to do all the right things. However, I was left feeling disappointed and empty because almost no one talked to me or ministered to me as a person. No one genuinely asked me how I felt about my disease; if I was mad at God; if I was afraid; how it was affecting my family, (I had two children in high school at the time); or did I have the right perspective on illnesses and why it afflicts God’s children. No one offered to pray with me one-on-one. In fact, comfort and encouragement were in short supply. When I tried to speak to some of them about my condition and feelings the responses I received were either “classic fear” or “canned phrases”. People were so afraid to offer any real comfort for the fear of saying the “wrong” thing, they virtually said nothing or would give me the safe answers they had heard all of their lives. “You’re in God’s hands”; “God never gives us more than we can handle”; “You just need to trust the Lord", “Maybe God is trying to teach you something.” These statements are true but provide very little comfort by themselves when one is facing a traumatic experience. Some said they understood what I was going through and it would be all right. But how could they understand? If someone had cancer before or even the same kind of cancer as me, how do they know what I was personally experiencing or feeling?