Seeking God Knows What

Awhile back I posted on the panel questions I am being asked to think about for a childhood/young adult cancer survivors conference. I must admit I have kind of avoided the questions for a bit because I realize they make me think about stuff I haven’t wanted to really tackle. But I need to do this so I can feel somewhat prepared for the conference.

So here goes the rest of them…

I left off with the biggest challenge question, which has been definitely been emotional over physical. The next question is:

How have you coped with this challenge? What strengths do you find are helpful to have in order to cope? What supports, i.e. family or faith, etc. have also been helpful?

Coping… hmmm… well, I haven’t coped well with the depression and anxiety. I have spent so much time trying to tell myself I was fine that when the “world” collapsed around me last summer and fall, I think I was actually in a state of shock and did not even know where to start to climb out of it.

I have such an antipathy about therapy that I only went reluctantly for about 8 times and then, well, finances “helped” me to quit going (we couldn’t afford it).

My saving grace really was having a physician who cared enough to “listen” to me express what was going on in my mind through a volley of emails. He also latched on to something that I probably would not have- the lack of a true relationship with God. He recognized that I believed in God and had the “fundamentals” of Christianity but he challenged me to wonder if that was enough and if the things I was doing to my financial situation, my relationship with T and my life, in general, were an attempt to fill this emptiness and loneliness I had been dragging with me for years, aggrevated by depression and anxiety.

With his encouragement, I began to read the New Testament of the Bible and other books like Blue Like Jazz and Searching for God Knows What (yes, I played on his title for my blog title )by Don Miller and he answered my questions or made me answer them myself. He told me where he went to church and said I was welcome to check it out, which T and I did and we both really like it (it lacks a few things as I have said before but no church is perfect). I also attended Alpha, for the first time, in a womens’ only group on Tuesday mornings. And he came with me when I decided what I really needed was to talk to the pastor, and he was there when I did realize that I was missing that relationship with God and that I truly wanted it and accepted Christ into my life.

Without his faith, I’m not sure my faith would be what it is today…

Okay, that was a bit of a tangent but I can say the faith I have now is helping me cope with the emotions that arise related to my cancer history because they haven’t gone away. I am just learning to handle them in a new way.