Why a Support Group?

My introduction to support groups came years ago when co-dependency was the buzz word among lay people and psychologists. I had reached the point where I couldn’t answer the simple question, “How are you today?” without first consulting with my three children. If all was well with them, all was well with me. I was never happier than my least happy child. Seldom were all three problem free, which meant I was seldom happy. Having decided that I fit the criteria for codependency (don’t all mothers?), I finally sought help.

The psychologist thought I would benefit from joining a group of other “co-dependents.” Being a rather private person and new to psychotherapy, I wasn’t eager to share my neuroses with a group of strangers, but since it was more economical than private sessions, I agreed. I was not comfortable at the meetings. I feared judgment; I didn’t really want them to know that I was a sick puppy. I became even more reticent when I realized that compared to the others, my problems were trivial. If I was a sick puppy, they were dying dogs. After sticking it out for several months, I left the group. The only therapeutic value came in the realization that I wasn’t as bad off as I thought.

Despite that negative experience, I am a zealous believer in support groups for cancer patients and caregivers. When Jim was diagnosed, I was desperate to find a group of people who understood what we were going through. I needed to know that survival was possible. I needed someone to help me sort through the maze of a cancer diagnosis. When we couldn’t find a group that met our needs, we started our own—f.a.i.t.H.--facing an illness through Him.

The members of f.a.i.t.H. are bound together by shared experience and a mutual foe—a killer disease. In this group, we do more than regurgitate our pent up hostilities and personality disorders with the sole purpose of catharsis. We do express our emotions without fear of judgment, but something magical happens when our burdens are shared with those who truly care about us and want to help. We are a proactive group intent on helping each other. In my first support group, the members were focused on their personal problems. In this group, the members focus on each other’s problems. We en-courage each other with the same encouragement we have received from God.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God” ( 2 Corinthians 1: 3-5).

If you are reluctant to join a support group, I ask you to consider some of the benefits:

1. The exchange of information.

A. How to control side-effects

B. Dietary concerns & recipes

C. Available protocols

D. Insurance information

E. Books

F. Oncologists

G. Treatment centers

H. Available trials

2. Reassurance that your feelings are normal.

3. Encouragement that others have survived cancer with prognoses as grim as your own.

4. Hope

5. Prayer support

6. Fellowship

7. Laughter

A good support group provides answers to the questions that most of us ask when confronting serious illness: How can I survive this? What happens if I don’t?

Most importantly, we come away from meetings knowing our concerns will be lifted up to the Ultimate Physician who can actually empower us for the battle we face. “For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there I am in the midst of them” (Matthew 18: 20).

Remission Depression

Go and celebrate with a feast of rich foods and sweet drinks, and share gifts of food with people who have nothing prepared. This is a sacred day before our Lord. Don’t be dejected and sad, for the joy of the Lord is your strength!” Nehemiah 8:10

For the past week, I have had the blues, been down in the dumps, out of sorts, or not myself. You’ll notice that I carefully avoid the word “depressed,” choosing instead any euphemism for the condition that plagued my father for most of his life. Knowing the genetic component of clinical depression, I’ve always had the unfounded fear that I, too, will be sucked into that bottomless pit.

The deaths of several f.a.i.t.H. members, visitations, and funerals this summer have contributed to my malaise. But apart from that very legitimate reason, I have little to be depressed about. Nicole, the psychologist daughter, suggested that because Jim is doing so well I have resorted to worrying about inconsequential happenings which I ignored when I had the overwhelming worry of his cancer.

Sad but true. I need something to worry about. When I was occupied with cancer, everything else shrank in importance. I couldn’t worry about whether a grandchild got the teacher he wanted or the part in the play that she deserved. My focus was on only one thing—Jim’s recovery. I had no energy left for other worries. Cancer has a way of realigning priorities and sifting the significant from the trivial.

Holly McRae, a member of f.a.i.t.H, whose six-year-old daughter Kate is battling a brain tumor expresses this so well:

“Yesterday was one of the best days in quite some time. Surprisingly, as I watched Kate go into her classroom for her first day of kindergarten, I wasn't overwhelmed with tears. Simply excitement and gratitude. Gratefulness that she got the chance to experience a first day of kindergarten, meeting new friends and navigating through an elementary school. Yes, her first day was far different than I could have ever imagined years ago. It was different, and yet still so good.

Kate is currently being evaluated by the school district to see what therapies she would or would not qualify for. The irony never misses me. The one I thought be bored with school, as it came so easy for her is now being tested to see what she needs to help her get through it. As it is still a hard pill to swallow some days, I am reminded of what truly matters, those things that no one or no disease can steal. Only those things that will last, those things that have eternal significance. In a moment the things we spend our lives painstakingly chasing can be gone. Gone with one diagnosis, gone in a moment. I hope I won't always fear cancer, but I pray that it will always remind me of what lasts. That it will have given me perspective not many find. And a confidence of what truly matters.”

This realigning of priorities has happened more than once in my lifetime. In September of 2001, tennis consumed my waking hours. I played several times a week and when I didn’t play I talked about it—how to win matches, why I lost matches, reliving points, and planning rematches. When I won a match, I was elated; when I lost I was defeated. I played tennis, as I play most games, as if it was a matter of life and death—fully engaged, committed, and involved. I approached each match using the techniques of Inner Tennis talking to myself to control the nerves that if unbridled would interfere with my ability to execute.

Then came 9/11. My priorities shifted. The outcome of a tennis match took its appropriate place in the bigger scheme of world events. I was no longer hampered by nerves before a game. What did it really matter when the world was falling apart?

In November, 2002, Jim was diagnosed with lung cancer, and my world crumbled as surely as the World Trade Center had the year before.

When in the throes of a cancer battle, or any crisis for that matter, I think I will never again need an attitude adjustment—the yanking up by the chain that occurs when real problems come into our lives. In the midst of a trial, I think that henceforth I will give thanks for every “normal day,” never again needing the thrill of a big win, an article published in a prestigious periodical, a marketing effort come to fruition, a pat on the back, or any other of the ego-boosters that make my day. Just waking up, feeling well with no looming problems on the horizon is good enough. After living in cancer’s shadow one would think a sunny day reason enough for rejoicing.

But I’m human. And human beings are quick to forget the blessings we receive and just as quick to forget the Source from whom those blessings flow.

My prayer, like Holly’s, is that cancer will continue to remind me of what is truly important, that “it will have given me perspective not many find. And a confidence in what truly matters.”

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed (1 Peter 1:6,7).

Book Review: What Every Christian Should Know About the Jewish People

An Interview with Sheryl Young

1. As a Jewish person, how did you come to know Jesus as your Messiah?

My family lived in an all-Christian neighborhood because of my father’s job. I really believed all the stories in the Torah (Jewish version of Old Testament), but I also wanted to know more about the Jesus my friends spoke of.

When we moved away from there, I forgot my desire for many years. Then, my grandparents died, and our family fell away from practicing Judaism. After I got married, my husband (whose mother was a Christian) just up and went to church one day. About two weeks later, he came home and said he’d accepted Jesus. So I went along to church, to see what it was about.

All those feelings came rushing back. But I still thought, I’m a Jewish girl, how can I accept Jesus? Then, the church had a revival and a Jewish believer in Jesus came to give her testimony and sing Messianic Jewish songs! That night, I gave my life to Christ.

2. What was the driving force behind your writing this book for Christians – and not a book for Jewish people about Christ?

Since finding the Lord in 1987, so many Christians have asked me questions about the Jewish religion, Jesus’ Jewish upbringing, and why Jewish people find it hard to accept Jesus as the Messiah. Also, there have been recent times that churches have attempted to “evangelize the Jews” without learning about them first. I felt a strong calling to help Christians have more tools and knowledge for reaching out to the Jewish world community in friendship and love.

3. What are a few questions you answer in the book?
The book is subtitled “Improving the Church’s Relationship with God’s Original Chosen Nation,” so there are many topics included to give Christians a well-rounded way to relate to Jewish people. But here are the questions I’m asked most often:

-Is Judaism a religion, a nationality or a culture?
-Why did Hitler target Jewish people and those who helped them in the Holocaust?
-How can I, as a Christian, defend Israel’s existence?
-Do Jewish people really need to be “converted,” and must they leave all their Jewishness behind?


About the Author

Sheryl’s been freelance writing professionally since 1997. Her work has been seen in the Tampa Tribune, St. Pete Times and Florida Baptist Witness Newspapers; Light & Life, Today’s Christian Woman and Better Nutrition Magazines; “Chicken Soup for the Soul,” Vista Sunday School Curriculum, NewChristianVoices.com and most currently as Staff Writer for The Underground Online Christian Magazine.

How to get the Book:

 Find details about How to Order “What Every Christian Should Know about the Jewish People” at her Faith-Inspired Blog, http://20-20faithsight.blogspot.com. It is available (online only) at LifewayStores.com http://www.lifewaystores.com/lwstore/product.asp?isbn=141411074X&mscssid=AH2W347UGRPX9H0PAHFBFEVDFHSM0D9F, Amazon.com and most other bookselling websites, or Wine Press/Pleasant Word Publishing https://www.winepressbooks.com/product.asp?pid=1852&search=Sheryl+Young&select=Keywords&ss=1

School Days

As my grandchildren prepare for a new school year, I remember my own school days and the excitement surrounding that first day.

In 1952 those of us starting first grade were truly novices. We didn’t have the advantage of pre-school, Mothers-day-out, or even kindergarten. If we knew our alphabet (and most of us did), it was because our parents taught us – not because they wanted us to get a head start, but because parents were expected to teach us the basics. There were no readiness tests or entrance exams because there were no private schools in our working class town. No one considered holding a child back until he was “ready.” If you turned six before 1953, you started first grade in September of 1952.

No one sent home a list of school supplies. We showed up on the first day with the requisite pencil box, milk money tied in the corner of a hanky, and a sack lunch. There was no dress code. The girls wore dresses; boys wore shorts or pants with shirts tucked in. Everyone wore anklets and some sort of practical oxford. We were neat and clean, faces shining, clothes ironed, and hair combed in honor of the special occasion – the first day of school.

Parents didn’t have anxiety about which teacher we would be assigned. The school only had two first grade teachers and our parents didn’t think they had a choice. My best friend and I were assigned to Miss Korb, a spinster who seemed ancient to me, but was probably no more than forty-five. She was of German descent; I think she may have studied under Hitler. She was mean as a snake and put up with absolutely no nonsense. One day I got a bloody nose in her class but sat at my wooden desk and bled all over my saddle shoes rather than incur her wrath. But Miss Korb got the job done. We all learned to read about Dick, Jane, and Spot.

My grandchildren pose for their “first day” pictures – taken with a digital camera rather than a Brownie. They are weighed down with their monogrammed back-packs filled with 150 dollars’ worth of required supplies. Tennis shoes have replaced the saddle oxfords; designer duds have replaced the pinafores. One thing remains unchanged – the excitement of the children as they enter the hallowed halls of learning.

Cancer and Anger

People dealing with chronic illnesses (and cancer, thankfully, has become a chronic illness for many lucky ones) are often expected to put on a happy face to greet a world oblivious to their problems. Is it possible to maintain a civil attitude and pleasant outlook when you are living with daily pain?

It’s tough to play the “glad game” when your joints are aching, your neuropathy is in full force, or your head is throbbing with another migraine. If, in fact, Pollyanna were to suggest that you look on the bright side, you might want to land a punch in her ever-pleasant puss or mow her down with your motorized walker.

Most of us don’t fall short in putting on a happy face, rather we overdo it and put on a happy face too often. Everyone I know (my husband included) who is living with pain and fatigue, doesn’t complain enough!

Anger is a normal reaction to a situation in which we feel a lack of control. The problem arises when anger is expressed inappropriately or when it is not expressed at all. Anger suppressed becomes depression. “Doctors are just beginning to understand how dangerous internalized anger is. Repressing it, internalizing it, turning it back on ourselves, swallowing it, storing it within us, inhibiting it, burying it, ''eating it,'' "stuffing it," can have catastrophic results for our health.”

How then can we get rid of our pent-up anger and not alienate everyone around us? Here are a few suggestions—not shoulds-- which only add more guilt to the load you’re carrying.

1.Don’t keep your happy face on all day. It’s exhausting. Holding anger in, repressing feelings drains us of energy that we need to cope with everyday activities. Find a safe place to express your feelings without fear of judgment—a support group or a friend you can phone.

2.Set aside a reasonable amount of time each day to vent, complain, cry, or shout from the rooftop. When the time is over, pick yourself up by the bootstraps and move on.

3.If you’re having an especially bad day, indulge yourself without guilt. Stay in bed. Read a book. Sleep.

4.Remember that you have a right to your feelings and a need to express them. Don’t suffer in silence, but be prepared for some negative reactions if your family is used to your “stiff upper lip.”

5.Laugh. Bill Cosby said, “Through humor you can soften some of the worst blows that life delivers. And once you find laughter, no matter how painful your situation might be, you can survive it.” 2 Whether laughter actually plays a role in healing has not been scientifically determined, but few deny its beneficial contribution to well-being. Norman Cousins, a writer, editor and humanitarian was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, a painful and progressive disease of the connective tissue. “Nothing is less funny than being flat on your back with all the bones in your spine and joints hurting,” he wrote. Convinced of the benefits of laughter, he developed a program of humor therapy—surrounding himself with positive people and a diet of funny movies. “It worked,” he said, “I made the joyous discovery that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep.”

6.Try Laughter Yoga. This doesn’t mean that you try yoga and the class laughs. Laughter Yoga is a variation of yoga introduced by a physician in India that is now practiced in fifty-three countries. Laughter gives the participants a sense of control over their disease. If your community doesn’t offer this program, try Pilates or regular yoga. Both are stress-relieving and body strengthening.

7.Take control of your thoughts. There are many things beyond your control—your mind is not one of them. In Philippians 4:8 Paul tells us, “Whatever is true, whatever is pure, whatever is lively, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” If this weren’t possible, God wouldn’t expect us do to it. But He made us with the ability to control our thoughts and direct our minds even when we can’t control our bodies. As irritating as Pollyanna might have been, she was onto something.

Once you have given vent your feelings, indulged in some laughter, and focused on the positive, you might find it easier to meet the unrealistic expectations of friends and relatives. If my suggestions don’t work, I recommend knocking Pollyanna to her knobby knees. It may not be an appropriate expression of anger but I guarantee it will be satisfying.

An Oasis on the Cancer Journey

“Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee” (Isaiah 26:3).

Jim and I are at a place I never expected to be—an oasis in the midst of a long and arduous cancer journey. To quote Jim, “I never thought I would hear the words, ‘cancer free’ in my lifetime."

For the first time in eight years, the giant who has been living in our attic shows no signs of awakening. I’m not sure he’s dead, but he seems to be in a deep coma—hopefully fatal. Of course, we have daily reminders of the damage he has done. Neuropathy, osteo-necrosis, daily injections of Lovenox, Melatonin and Metformin pills—still a small price to pay for extermination of the beast.

While we are enjoying the respite, I have not forgotten what it is like to live in the giant’s presence. Updates from the McRaes and others, remind me how difficult it is to watch, wait, and wonder whether the cancer is gone, or still at work beneath the surface, creating a maelstrom of destruction. The sheer normalcy of days between scans is bittersweet, because we don’t know how many normal days are left.

Is it ever over for those of us who have learned that cancer is a sneaky foe, striking where and when it pleases? Those who have learned that our prayers aren’t always answered the way we would like? We who have observed firsthand how unfair cancer can be? We have seen suffering up close and personal and aren’t eager to sign up for another go-round.

One of the benefits of facing the death of a loved one is learning to appreciate each day for its previously overlooked blessings. And yet, when the specter of death hangs over us, when fear of recurrence surrounds us, the blessings are difficult to see. No matter how great the resolve to live in the moment, I have yet to find someone who can keep the resolution. Fear creeps in, robbing us of what joy we might have.

My advice to those in the throes of a cancer battle: Keep focused on the positive. Denial is sometimes a necessary and useful coping mechanism. Follow Paul’s advice to the Philippians. In the first part of Chapter 4, Paul tells us how to achieve “the peace that passes understanding.” We are to be thankful for all things and take our requests to God. Verse 8, perhaps less quoted, elaborates on how to achieve this peace that is beyond human comprehension—peace in the face of overwhelming fear, like a cancer recurrence.

We must come to God with grateful hearts, lay our requests before him, AND keep our minds on that which is “excellent and praiseworthy.” When Satan pummels us with fearful thoughts and plants seeds of doubt and fear in our minds, we can counter attack by focusing on “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable.”
When I was overcome with fear about upcoming tests, I asked myself, “What is true? What do I know?”

I don’t know that the cancer is back; I don’t know that the cancer will kill Jim; I don’t know what tomorrow will bring.

But I do know: God wants the best for me. He has always proved faithful. He is a mighty God, more powerful than any disease. Nothing can separate me from His love.

Remember that our tomorrows have already passed through God’s hands. He waits there for us ready to carry us when we cannot walk. “Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.”