Give Thanks?

My friend Susan has supplied me with many really inspiring and uplifting books for this cancer journey I am on. One of these books, known as The Mitford Series, recounted a quote from St. Paul, “In everything, give thanks.” I truly believe that gratitude is the key to happiness, that to be appreciative of things great and small is to have a heart overflowing with joy. But in everything give thanks? It is the ‘everything’ part that is the struggle, isn't it? Does this quote suggest that I be appreciative and even give thanks for cancer?

To give thanks for something that has turned my family’s life upside down, and has made me sick in ways I didn’t even know were possible, is a lot to ask of a girl. Plus, I have been really busy praying to have this disease removed from me – to the point that if Saints Damien and Peregrine were alive, they surely would have filed a restraining order against me by now.

When I started this blog, I was just diagnosed with Osteosarcoma. I did not know what lay ahead, I guess who does? But, there were things that I gleaned from a rather distressing conversation with my oncologist early-on. Based on this conversation, and an overwhelming desire to cheer myself up, I came up with Top Ten Things About Cancer in an earlier blog. All ten are still true, and, with the addition of a Handicap Placard, I did get to add great parking wherever I go. I am not sure that this is exactly what St. Paul meant, however.

If, as Christians we are truly followers of the words and actions of Christ, this would mean that we accept suffering as Christ did, sometimes for the greater good. I am not suggesting in any way that my disease will have the profound and lasting impact that Jesus’ dying on the cross did. But, perhaps in some small way, we are all called to have some good come of whatever discomfort or unhappy experience plagues us.

When I think about it, much of what humanity has gained was because of someone’s suffering. We have sign language because a little girl could not hear. We have Braille because a three year old accidentally lost his sight. St. Damien suffered leprosy so that those he served would know God. There are so many examples once I thought about it, which I am ashamed to say, I really hadn’t until revisiting this quote from St. Paul in this book from Susan.

This week, we (including the girls, who are on Spring Break) are all back in NYC for my first of five rounds of High-Dose Methotrexate (HD-MTX) Chemotherapy treatments. They tell me that I will not be as nauseous with this as I am with my regular chemo. I really, really hope that this is true. The week after HD-MTX, I am back home for round six of nine of my regular chemotherapies. I have a week off, then back to NYC for HD-MTX again.

There is a Tibetan Monk who is widely, even medically, recognized as the happiest man alive. I listened to an NPR interview with him about a year ago. He said he was reluctant to accept the distinction. He believed that to be happy all the time is not only not possible, but not desirable either. He gave an example of being cold and coming to sit by a warm fire. At first, you are so pleased with the fire as it melts away the chill, but if you continue to sit by the fire, you become warm and your appreciation diminishes. Arguably, this is because you can’t maintain the same level of happiness as when you first felt the warmth. I think this is a lot like Spring, it is glorious and welcomed wholeheartedly by even the most curmudgeonly amongst us after a long winter. Maybe this “In everything give thanks” includes the winter so that we may appreciate the spring even more.

I don’t believe that God gave me cancer, but I do believe that I am called to find a purpose in it. What this purpose is, I will have to puzzle over. Maybe I will never truly know the answer. The point is that I was reminded to give thanks in EVERYTHING, which includes the bitter and the beautiful.