responsive-logo
  • Home
  • About
  • Keep Breathing
    • Keep Breathing: Introduction
    • Part 1
      • Stay Grounded
      • Keep Breathing
      • Gather Information
      • Feel What You Feel
      • Take in Support
      • Pray
      • Practice Surrender
      • Notice Your Reactivity
    • Part 2
      • Realize What Is Happening to You
        Is Happening To Everyone in Your Life
      • Take Inventory
      • Let Go of Shame
      • Extend Grace
      • Show Up
      • Learn Vulnerability
      • Make Amends
      • Stay Present in Times of Waiting
    • Part 3
      • Be Still and Keep Moving
      • Know You Are Not Alone
      • Ask for Healing
      • Seek Guidance
      • Meditate
      • Pursue Peace
      • Acknowledge Death
      • Grieve
    • Part 4
      • Express Gratitude
      • Stay Open to Joy
      • Make Room for Laughter
      • Celebrate Each Day
      • Let Yourself Be Carried
      • Be Who You Are
      • Know That You Are Loved
  • Desperate Hope
    • Shocked by the Diagnosis
    • Responding to Feelings of Fear, Anxiety, and Sadness
    • Ordering Desperate Hope
  • TLC Leader’s Manual
    • Group Leader Resources
      • Introduction to TLC
      • Meeting Format
      • Notes to Group Leaders
      • When a Group Member Dies
    • Strong Feelings
      • Understanding our Feelings
      • The Emotional Roller Coaster
      • Living With Fear
      • Dealing With Depression
      • Living with Anger
      • Grieving Our Losses
      • The Experience of Gratitude
      • Celebration and Joy
      • Experiencing Peace
      • Finding Hope
    • Challenges to Faith
      • Stretching Our Faith
      • Prayer
      • Examining Our View of God
      • Healing Prayer
      • The Lord Is With Us
      • God’s Healing Presence
    • Changing Perspectives
      • The Seasons Of Survival
      • Living Sanely in An Insane World
      • One Day At A Time
      • Positive Thinking
      • Accepting Our Need for Help
      • Building Friendships
      • Perspectives on Treatment
      • Coping With Pain
      • Repairing Our Self Esteem
  • Contact

Prayer

“Jesus the Son of God is our great High Priest who has gone to heaven itself to help us; therefore let us never stop trusting Him. This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, since He had the same temptations we do, though He never once gave way to them and sinned. So let us come boldly to the very throne of God and stay there to receive mercy and to find grace to help us in our times of need.

Hebrews 4:14-16 (Living Bible)

Prayer can become routine. But when our health and life are threatened by cancer, we learn to value prayer in a new way.

Our prayers, at times, may become more urgent and more passionate. We understand our desperate need and our powerlessness. We are thrown on God’s mercy with new intensity.

At other times we may find ourselves unable to pray. This can be a disorienting and discouraging experience. It might be helpful to know that not being able to pray is a common experience for people in crisis. When we cannot pray because we are too ill or too weak or too depressed, we can ask others to pray for us. And in those times we can remember that Jesus prays for us.

Prayer is acknowledging our dependence on our Maker. It is asking for God’s help and care. In the process of asking for help in prayer something happens to us. Our attention becomes focused on God.

As we focus our attention on God we are changed. Prayer, which begins as a response to God’s invitation, often leads us to an experience of God which changes us. Prayer is then a place of transformation. Here is how Henri Nouwen describes the process:

“The pains and struggles we encounter in prayer thus become the way to hope, because our hope is not based on something that will happen after our sufferings are over, but on the real presence of God’s healing Spirit in the midst of these sufferings.

The discipline of prayer allows us gradually to come in touch with this hopeful presence of God in our lives, and allows us also to taste even now the beginnings of the joy and peace which belong to the new heaven and the new earth.”
(Nouwen, Making All Things New).


Questions for Discussion – Session 1

1. When has it been especially difficult for you to pray?

2. When has prayer been especially meaningful for you?

3. How have your prayers changed since your journey with cancer began?


Questions for Discussion – Session 2

1. What feelings have you expressed to God this week?

2. What image of God comes to mind when you pray?

3. Write a prayer, expressing whatever you are feeling right now to God.

Share this page:

  • Email
  • Print
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter

TLC Leader’s Manual

A photocopy-ready version of the TLC Leader's Manual is now available for download. If you are thinking about starting a Cancer Support Group, this might be helpful!

PDF version

MSWord version

Quote of the moment

"One of the things that we tend to dislike about our feelings is that they are not always rational. We feel things that don’t make logical sense to us. . . But our feelings do not go away simply because we try to dismiss them as irrational. On the contrary, the more we resist them because we don’t want to feel them, the more they seem to lay claim on our attention and our limited energy. "
Juanita Ryan

Copyright © 2025 Together Living With Cancer · Disclaimer · Privacy Policy - Log in

We use cookies to ensure that you have the best experience on our website. If you continue to view the site, we will assume that this is OK. For details see our privacy policy.OkPrivacy policy