Dear Friends,

It was so good being out at the Mission on Good Friday. It was also good seeing everyone.

So, I have a story. I am still processing it, but I wanted to share anyway. The week leading up to my operation, I started to feel very anxious about the results of the surgery. I wasn’t confident that the margins would be clear, or that the surgeon would find clean lymph nodes. In fact, I became fairly convinced that we would find out that the cancer had spread. I also began to worry that I wouldn’t make it through the surgery. I had felt such confidence in my doctors and had received such comfort from prayers during my treatment previously, that I wasn’t sure how to handle these anxieties. I didn’t discuss any of it with my husband because I also felt these anxieties were silly. I felt very alone that week. The morning of the surgery, as we were driving to the hospital, I became even more stressed. All of a sudden I had a thought: What if I was feeling this way because God didn’t care about me? Or... what if there wasn’t a God?

We arrived at the hospital. We checked in, I was tucked into the hospital bed, the nurses came in to take my blood pressure and to stick me with the IV, and the entire time all I could think was “There isn’t a God.” I realized that if there isn’t a God, obviously everything I have done my entire life has no meaning. This existential crisis shook me. I mean, of course at times throughout my life I had questioned the existence of God or questioned how much of a role He played in our lives... Certainly belief ebbs and flows, but His absence was something I never *seriously* considered real. Now, however, I was convinced of it. I also became convinced that I was going to die during surgery. And because I didn’t believe in God anymore, I was convinced I was going to go to Hell. (I know the logic doesn’t make sense— how could there be a Hell if there isn’t a God?— and I told myself then that it didn’t make sense, but it didn’t matter. That is what I believed.) So I became terrified of going to Hell. I was so scared— and anguished—that I considered calling off the surgery, but I didn’t know how to explain to my surgeon that because I no longer believed in God, I couldn’t have the surgery.

So I decided to say a decade of the Rosary. I knew it wouldn’t do any good, because since there wasn’t a God, the Rosary had no meaning, but I have been trained, if you will, to fall back on the Rosary when times get tough, so I figured I would say a decade and see what happened. So I prayed. It wasn’t a good prayer. My mind was all over the place and my heart wasn’t in it. By the time I was finished with the decade, the anesthesiologist came in to administer anesthesia and the surgeon came in to wheel me to the operating room. I didn’t have time to think about anything else. I don’t even know if I told my husband good bye or that I loved him. I just don’t remember. All of a sudden everything happened very quickly. I remember thinking that— I finished the prayer and was surprised that the doctors were already ready to go.

Hours later, I woke up in the recovery room. The first thought that came to my mind was “Thank God, I am alive.” The first person I saw was my surgeon standing next to me, waiting for me to wake up. The first thing she told me was that she only needed to take 3 lymph nodes because the initial pathology showed they were clear. In other words, the cancer hadn’t spread.The two things I feared the most leading up to the surgery didn’t come to fruition.

I teach at a college and most of my colleagues are atheists. These are really great people who just don’t believe in God. We have had many conversations about why they believe there isn’t a God and why I do. I have witnessed their anguish and anxiety and fear and desolation and despair at life... and I honestly believe that all of these emotions are because they don’t believe in God— or maybe they really do and are in denial, and maybe that denial makes things worse for them. Whatever it is, as I was laying in the hospital bed, I completely understood every bit of despair and isolation they feel. I felt so sad. Really, I can’t accurately describe what I felt, because it was so horrible and I don’t have the words. One thing I am very aware of, however, is that whatever I felt laying in the hospital bed was blessedly short... maybe 15 minutes? But it was the worst 15 minutes of my life, literally. It was true anguish. And I am so sad for my colleagues who feel this way every day— way more than 15 minutes— because they don’t believe in God.

But the other thing I feel as a result of my experience before my surgery is God’s love. That is what I am still processing— what that means. Just like I don’t have the words to accurately explain how I felt during those 15 minutes of desolation, I don’t have the words to explain why I feel God’s love or what it feels like to feel the amount of God’s love that I do. The church says His love is fathomless, and yes, it is. It is powerful and all-encompassing and life sustaining and transformative. It is immeasurable amounts of joy and happiness. And even that doesn’t describe it. When I talked with you after Mass and said that this cancer experience was transformative, *this* is what I meant. I have never felt such love before. And I am unsure what to do with it.

When I first found out I had cancer, I said lots of prayers, as you can imagine. One was that God not let it go to waste— to use my suffering as He needed. I also asked Him to let this experience make me into whatever mother, wife, friend, daughter, person He needed me to be. Somehow the moments when I didn’t believe in Him were answers to my prayers, but I am not sure how. I just believe they must be. This is what I am still processing and trying to figure out.

The prayers from the Mission have meant so much to my family and to me, and I don’t know how I could have handled the last 9 months without them. I can’t say enough thank you’s to everyone at the Mission for their prayers and support. I hope you all recovered quickly from a long Easter weekend and have gotten some good rest in. Let me know how we can pray for you all.

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