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  • 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

Living Sanely in An Insane World

Jesus and his disciples came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”
Luke 10: 38-42

Many of us identify with Martha in this story. She welcomed Jesus to her home. She worked hard to serve him and her family. She was angry that her sister wasn’t working. Jesus’ response was to lovingly tell Martha that she was worried and upset about many things, but that she had forgotten what was most important in life.

One of the opportunities that cancer brings is the opportunity to re-evaluate our priorities and to reconsider our values. Cancer stops us. It gives us pause to think. It causes us to ask hard questions about who we are and what we value most in life.

Because of the demands of everyday life, we often loose sight of these things. We are very busy. And we seem to like it that way. We spend our lives reacting and responding to the endless demands that are made on us. Rarely do we evaluate. Rarely do we reflect. Rarely do we look inward.

Cancer helps us do all these things. Money, power, status and prestige suddenly seem less important. Relationships and spiritual growth take on deeper meaning. We often have an increased desire to spend more time relating to ourselves, others and God.

The opportunity to reflect and evaluate can be one of the gifts that cancer brings into our lives. In the moments of solitude and reflection that cancer brings, we are able to reconsider what our lives are all about. Here’s how Henri Nouwen talks about this:

Solitude is the place of purification and transformation, the place of the great struggle and the great encounter. Solitude is not simply a means to an end. Solitude is its own end. It is the place where Christ remodels us in his own image and frees us from the victimizing compulsions of the world…. In solitude our heart of stone can be turned into a heart of flesh, a rebellious heart into a contrite heart, and a closed heart into a heart that can open itself to all suffering people in a gesture of solidarity. ( Nouwen, The Way of the Heart).


Questions for Discussion – Session 1

1. Think of a time when doing too many things created a problem for you and describe the problems it created.

2. What unrealistic expectations do you have of yourself that might lead you to over doing?

3. What changes in values and priorities have you experienced because of cancer?


Questions for Discussion – Session 2

1. List the five things you value most in life.

2. Describe what you can do on an ongoing basis to express each of these values.

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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

"Some mornings when I am out walking I look up at the sky and it seems far away. On other days I realize that the sky kisses the earth. As I walk, I move through sky. I walk surrounded by sky. I breath in the sky. It lives inside of me. Whether the sky seems close or far away, the truth is that it is always close. And, so it is with God. God is the One in whom we “live and breathe and have our being” (Acts 17:28). God is with us. Always. God’s loving presence caresses us, surrounds us, fills us. I am not alone. You are not alone. God is with us. And God knows. You can trust this absolutely."
Juanita Ryan

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