Can You Find Peace With Cancer?

I've been thinking about peace lately.  I was surrounded by peace this last weekend while my family was camping.  I was able to listen to the birds sing and my wind chime from my daughter play.  It was a calming feeling to have this peace during a time where I didn't want to face the reality that I have had cancer for three years. 


That peace in the home was easy to find with my family gone.  Sometimes that peace is very difficult to find with the constant craziness of kids, responsibilities and just life in general.  That peace is just the peace of sound.  Peace of mind or peace of your soul can be even harder to find when you are facing something difficult like cancer.


But can you find peace with cancer?  Can you ever accept what is happening in your body and to your body?  When you are struggling with a disease, or any other struggle long term, can there ever be a time where you can truly be at peace with what is happening?  I believe you can, but it is a process.

The apostle Paul of the Bible is a great example of this.  He had more trials than anyone I have ever known.  He suffered hunger, beatings, shipwrecks, almost dying, imprisonment, stoning, and the list goes on and on.  But with all these things God was teaching him something.  He was teaching him contentment.  He says in the book of Philippians, "I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.  I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty.  I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. 


Paul wasn't content and full of peace because of anything he did.  He was content and full of peace because he knew that God's strength, not his own, was getting him through everything and would continue to get him through anything else that would come his way.  He leaned on God rather than himself or anyone else.  That's how you can find peace with cancer.


I will be the first to admit that I don't always have peace with my cancer.  There are those days when I'm missing my kids' activities again, or I'm feeling horrible, or even when I hear of someone who has been blessed with the gift of beating cancer that peace is seemingly far out of reach.  That's when God calls me to repentance and reminds me in some small way to once again lean on Him for strength. Then that peace comes back.  Sometimes, like this weekend or when I first started this journey, I'm flooded with it.  That's God's great gift.  Other times it's small, like a calming voice whispering in my ear when I've felt like I've reached the end of my rope.  That's also God's great gift.


The best way I have found to find peace with my cancer is to stay in my Bible.  Gems come out all the time that remind me that God is taking care of me and fighting for me.  One of my favorite passages comes from Exodus where the Israelites have their backs against a wall.  The Egyptians were coming to attack and they had nowhere to go because they were by the Red Sea.  They were mad a Moses for bringing them here to die.  Moses already knew God had great plans in store.  This is what he told them.

God had a plan for them and He has a plan for all of us.  When we remember and focus on that, we can have peace in any situation, even cancer.