Grace Keeps You Going: Spiritual Wisdom from Cancer Patients

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Grace Keeps You Going: Spiritual Wisdom from Cancer Patients

Here are some excerpts from Grace Keeps You Going

Checkup Time

Time for a checkup!

I don’t like the psychic straining and stretching I feel.

I’m tied in knots, pulled tight.

I want to be treated with dignity and respect.

If I have to be touched or probed, I want it done with gentleness.

I want to be calm.

I want to get good reports.

I want improved help and attitudes.

I want relief from pain and worry.

I want good news.

I want to be healthy.

I want to be tough enough to take it,

If this checkup brings me to a turning point,

I want to be flexible and determined in the next phase I enter.

I want it to be detected if it’s there.

I want to make good use of all the knowledge and skills, all the equipment and medicine.

I want full reports from complete testing and through exams.

I want these forces to work for my benefit-

YOUR love,

The physical and emotional treatments,

The powerful medications,

My mental attitudes and my body’s strength,

My prayers,

The prayers and concern of other people.

Used with permission, from Grace Keeps You Going ,

edited by Mac N. and Anne Shaw Turnage,

Westminster John Knox Press, www.wjkbooks.com.

Meet the Editors who put this book together!

Anne Turnage was diagnosed with colon cancer in the early 1970s and given only a small chance of surviving. Since then she has founded CanCare, an organization of more than 700 volunteer cancer survivors who offer companionship, support, and hope to others coping with the disease.

Mac Turnage was on the faculty of Union Theological Seminary in Richmone, Virginia, and he most recently served as the Minister of Pastoral Care at Memorial Drive Presbyterian Churc in Houston. They are the coauthors of More Than You Dare to Ask: The First Year of Living with Cancer.

Heal the Healers

God of healing, comfort, and encouragement:

Work through the healers-

doctors, nurses, therapists,

pharmacists, counselors,

Helpers (with bedpans and mops).

Work through them with power,

with tenderness,

with brightness.

Steady their hands.

Teach them that healers can also love their patients,

without owning or controlling them.

Work in the healing team

while they deal with difficult situations and difficult people,

while they feel frustration and failure, disappointment and grief,

while they cannot work miracles,

while they balance their private and personal needs with the needs of people they help.

Comfort and encourage them with success,

with visions of serving YOU and healing people,

with invigorating companionship,

with high and humble regard

For the sacredness of their work.

Spirit of healing and Source of health, Origin of all life:

Live fully in the lives of people

whose work is in the healing of others.

Used with permission, from Grace Keeps You Going , by Mac N. and Anne Shaw Turnage, Westminster John Knox Press, www.wjkbooks.com.