Questions. We all have them.

A group of breast cancer survivors relaxed on leather couches in a comfortable lodge at last summer’s Casting for Recovery fishing retreat. I was lucky to be among them and grateful for a time set aside to ask our medical team questions. One stood out.

While much of our weekend was spent with the mechanics and thrill of fly fishing on the Little Juniata, there was an undercurrent of heaviness for me, knowing these younger women with so much to live for need a strong anchor to hold them steady through the years ahead.

A woman with metastatic breast disease posed the most memorable question. She asked Dr. Diane Buchbarker, the oncology physician with us, what it’s like working with patients who die. Isn’t it a depressing occupation?

.It was a brave question with a wise answer.

The air was still until Dr. Diane spoke, “All physicians have patients who die.”

That struck a spiritual cord, pulling back the curtain on our common destiny. I smiled at what she said next. Because of rapid advances over the past 20 years she can offer patients more hope than when she first entered medicine. She said just that week another advance was announced, this is why she thinks oncology is a hopeful field.

Wow. Hope. That’s all I could think. At home, friends suggested I share what she said with my readers, because we all need a little more hope.

When I told one of my oncologists, he agreed with Dr. Diane. He said it’s his job to help folks like me live as long and healthy as we can. October, when there’s a massive effort on increasing funding for cancer research, is a good time to share a word of inspiration.

When our COURAGE and Cancer leadership team met to plan October’s gathering someone said we’re born to die yet created to live forever. I had to think about that for awhile.

I picture my days on earth like an arch stretching from the autumn-colored hills and valley outside my north window to the forested mountainsides to south and far beyond. Sometimes clouds mask my view of the arch, but never God’s.

Life, like clouds brushed by sunrise and sunset, is never stationary. The hope offered by Jesus give wings to my feet, for He promised, “I have come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.”

Abundant life.

Whatever valleys we pass through.

Abundant life.

To offer to friends and strangers.

Abundant life.

Despite our questions.

More powerful than foes within or without.

More powerful than death itself.

The Spirit empowers us to live into the promises of Jesus. The biblical book of Romans 8 tells us the Spirit groans in intercession for us with divine intention that we know God’s unrelenting presence through His suffering, crucified, Risen Son.

A friend who has suffered an unspeakable loss recently posted:

Now there are some things we all know, but we don’t take’m out and look at’m very often. We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t houses and it ain’t names, and it ain’t earth, and it ain’t even the stars … everybody knows in their bones that something is eternal, and that something has to do with human beings. All the greatest people ever lived have been telling us that for five thousand years and yet you’d be surprised how people are always losing hold of it. There’s something way down deep that’s eternal about every human being. (Thornton Wilder, “Our Town,” Act III, 1938)

Questions?

We’ll always have them.

Hope?

Hope is an anchor, holding firm and steadfast when gales blow.

We didn’t directly discuss spirituality on that fishing retreat I attended, but it’s my deep hope that faith in our Creator is the anchor of my fellow survivors.

Thank you, Dr. Diane. You made my day.

Thank you, Lord. You literally made my day!

And all the days to come.

All will be well.

Texting Thru Recovery/Indiana Gazette