To have and to behold, in sickness and in health

“Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”

I use to ask 'why me' God when bad things happen as if I have this Christian bubble around me that prevents suffering from occurring. Perhaps it is a life experience that I now ask God, why not me? To watch a loved one journey the lonely road of cancer treatment is at times heartbreaking. To sit with her trying to support her as her oncologist is explaining MRI results and the treatment proposal while watching her trying to hold back the tears is not the easiest thing to do. As I look back over our marriage, we have been there for each

To have and to behold, in sickness and in health. I was told one time that most people see a spike in their blood pressure as they pull up and see the large signage that reads, University of Minnesota Masonic Cancer Institute. Every day, people of all ages come to this clinic for their chemo/immune therapy to hopefully kill off the cancer cells and reduce the size of their tumor. There are some who receive positive news and others who receive the heartbreaking news that their treatment isn't working like it should.

Like grief after a loss of a loved one, traveling this cancer road is a lonely one, only because few people know what to say to someone given a cancer diagnosis. In one conversation I had with an Oncologist, she said that over half of her cancer patients have either unprocessed bottled up stress, or unresolved trauma-related issues. She said that it would be helpful if her patients learned how to talk about their stress. I mentioned I was a facilitator of a grief share group an this is something that this group teaches through the 13-week video and from Mourning to joy exercises- teaching people how to go through the pain of their grief, not around it.

If you know someone battling cancer, I encourage you to reach out to them and be their trusted listener. You may never know the impact this may have on them until you cross the heavenly threshold and Jesus says with tenderness in his voice, "well done my good and faithful servant."