I have to make a confession - I've been going through chemo for five months now; I've had five months to make peace with my cancer diagnosis and move on, but - I still struggle with feelings of ANGER. I get angry at myself (why, oh why, didn't I go to the doctor sooner?), at the world/environment (what the heck is in our air/water/GMO-laced food that germinated my cancer?), or even at my own body (why are you so weak?). I guess that's natural, although I was warned by my doctor's nurse practitioner who has an appalling bedside manner to "just don't go there." Most of the time when I get steamed, it's at God.
I find myself talking to God when I'm at my weakest and it's not a pretty conversation. I ask him incredibly impertinent questions, such as: "Why did you do this to me?" "Why do you hate me?" "What did I do to deserve this punishment you're dishing out with such a generous ladle?" Then I wait for the lightning to strike. It doesn't come - he's a lot more patient than that. After I'm done throwing my tantrum, I'm ashamed of myself, but while I'm in the midst of it, I'm deadly serious. It FEELS as if I am, as the scriptures describe, a "vessel of wrath" and God is causing my pain and destroying my body in slow motion. This kind of anger at God made me feel so guilty and ashamed that I had to talk about it with friends and family and I made an amazing discovery - I'm not the only one who feels this way from time to time.
Are we like the unfortunate Puritans who examined every personality trait and every life event to determine if a person was favored by God? Because they, indeed, believed that each person was fated for Heaven or Hell from birth and that one's destination was an unknowable mystery. "Clues" such as good health, material wealth, and natural virtues suggested that God had marked you for Heaven. Poor health, poverty, errors in judgement, and noisy/irreverent personality traits marked you for Hell. No wonder they examined themselves (and each other) with such finely-ground, critical lenses; they had to discover God's opinion of them. They were in constant suspense. So much so that there is an account of a Puritan mother who, so anxious about the cryptic destination of her soul, threw her newborn infant into a well, killing it. Afterward, in a bizarre attitude of relief, she declared that now, at least, she knew she was a child of Hell.
Maybe part of our culture (which began with Puritan influences) still retains some of this belief system. So we feel that when things go wrong we are being told by God that he does not hold us in his favor. We may allow ourselves the unfortunate belief that we are marked as being outside of God's love and family. It is hard to hold on to the feeling that God loves us when the events in our lives are painful and they just keep coming.
I pondered this dilemma for a long time. While reading a religious magazine, I came across a phrase that resonated with me and helped me frame a helpful perspective. The author of the article I was reading referred to our mortal life as a "sacred journey." My interpretation of this idea is that life is movement and progression toward a destination and that the quality of the journey is enhanced by struggle. We, as explorers and adventurers, are enhanced by struggle. And what's our destination? Our Heavenly Father and loved ones who have reached home before us! We're not exerting so much effort along our journey to just get to a place where we can sit down, take a load off, rest a bit. We're headed home to a heavenly parent we love and who loves us. This destination makes our journey very sacred indeed.
To use a metaphor, a real world traveler, upon returning home, would have many stories to tell of the experiences of their journey and of the exotic sights they had seen. They would probably have a couple of hours worth of slide show for anyone interested as well as a collection of souvenirs. Their passport would be well worn and heavily stamped with the names of the many countries they had explored. Their journey would be notable and respected by all those welcoming them home after their travels.
Why can't we see life like a sacred journey and less like a Puritan test of divine favor? It feels appropriate and right for me to see my life as the first. When I do this, Cancer becomes a land that not everyone explores, a land of exotic perceptions. Cancer is a colorful stamp in my passport, just like all the experiences of life: stops along the way of my journey, not positive or negative clues to tell me if God loves me or not. Cancer is a hard land and one known for its rigor, but how proud I will be to display that stamp in my passport to my Heavenly Father when I get home!
I won't say that seeing my life as a sacred journey has erased all moments of anger, but it prevents me from following these momentary feelings into unfortunate and irrelevant Puritan reflections. It reminds me that there's a purpose to every bump in the road. It refocuses my vision to my destination: Home.
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