Strength for the Cancer Journey - Deborah Barr

If a doctor has given you or someone you love a diagnosis of cancer, don't miss today's "The 5 Love Languages" . Today, the club nobody wants to be part of, the group of people "The 5 Love Languages" .com. You'll see our featured resource, Strength for the Cancer Journey, 30 Days of Inspiration, Encouragement and Comfort.

Just go to FiveLoveLanguages.com. Gary, this topic is a personal one for you, isn't it? A loss of energy. Yeah, it's a long journey and it can be a hard journey. But she's doing wonderful today. We're very, very grateful for that.

And that's the good news that in today's world, many people do survive cancer and come out on the other side and, you know, have additional years to live. But I am excited about this book that Debbie's written. I wish Carolyn and I had had a book like this of devotions, you know, when we were going through that journey.

I think anyone who either has cancer or who is a caregiver for a cancer patient would find a book like this to be extremely helpful and encouraging while they're taking that journey. I remember you saying that, Carolyn, that you sat down and said, I'm going to cancel all of my, you know, going around the country and speaking and all that. And Carolyn looked you right in the eye and said, no, you're not, right? She did.

Exactly. She said, you're not going to cancel anything. You know, God put that on your schedule.

You're not going to cancel it. She said, you'll be here when I need you. And if you happen to be away and I need something, my friends will be here in five minutes, you know. And she's right about that. She had some very close friends that walked with her through the journey. And of course, I was here at crucial moments, you know, during that time.

And it's not that I'm gone long periods of time, you know, most of my traveling is just out one day and speaking and coming back the next day. But yeah, I mean, she was adamant about that. And I said, okay, Carolyn, if that's what you want, that's what we'll do. But yeah, she looks back on that year and kind of says in a sense, it was my lost year of my life. But in another sense, she said, I've been much more sensitive to life and appreciating life, you know, because when you go to the door, the front door of death and come back, you are grateful to be alive. So, yeah, you know, it's interesting how God uses even the very, very difficult things in our lives to enrich us as individuals and to encourage others, you know, whom we encounter on the journey.

Yeah. And if you are walking with someone like that, maybe a spouse or a loved one, family member, friend, if you're walking with them or if you yourself are walking this trail, I want you to hear from Debbie Barr, Deborah Barr, B-A-R-R. She's an author, speaker, health educator. She's an author, speaker, health educator with a passion for encouraging people to engage deeply with God as they journey through some tough times. Her previous devotional book, Grace for the Unexpected Journey, was written for dementia caregivers, and it was named Best Inspirational Book at the 2018 Digital Book World Awards.

Strength for the Cancer Journey is her sixth book, and you can find out more at FiveLoveLanguages.com. Well, Debbie, welcome back to Building Relationships. Thank you, Gary. It is my pleasure to be with you again. As Chris mentioned, you've written a number of books, and the last was the one he mentioned. It was for caregivers of dementia patients, and that grew out, of course, a book that you and I and Dr. Ed Shaw, medical doctor, wrote. His wife had Alzheimer's, and we all wrote that book together called Keeping Love Alive as Memories Fade, "The 5 Love Languages" in the Alzheimer's Journey. And then you wrote this devotional book for caregivers of dementia patients. And I'm really excited to see that you have now written the book for both patients, those who have cancer, and for caregivers, helping them spiritually, emotionally walk through this journey.

So I'm really glad that you have done this. Are there parallels between someone who has a diagnosis of dementia and someone who gets a cancer diagnosis? You know, you wouldn't think so, but I do think so. And the common reality is that the diagnosis of either dementia or cancer is something you're never prepared for. It's always a shock, and that's actually where the title of the Dementia Caregiver book came from. It's Grace for the Unexpected Journey, and that's because it's always an unexpected journey. Nobody ever expects to be diagnosed with dementia or cancer, or for your close family member, as you know. You never saw that coming, and nobody ever does. And so I guess the parallel, if there is one, I think it's the element of shock and surprise. Well, I can certainly see that, and I think our listeners can identify with that. Anyone who's ever had either one of those diseases will know we didn't sit around anticipating this is going to happen to me.

It just happens, and then you have to respond to that. What inspired you to tackle the topic of cancer? Well, Gary, I think you'll remember that my mother had cancer, but my father also had cancer. So cancer has been on my radar for many years, but it wasn't until about two years ago, when someone I'm very close to at this point in my life got cancer, that it just opened my eyes to how many, many, many people in this country and all around us are going through the cancer journey. And as I think we've mentioned, I do have this passion for encouraging people to engage deeply with God when they're going through a hard time. And so because I saw this up close and personal for a period of about two years, that just triggered in me the desire to do something for people with cancer that was kind of along the same lines as the devotional for dementia caregivers, because they're both really, really hard journeys, and they're both potentially very isolating. And so having something at your fingertips that will bring you back to your focus back to the Lord within minutes is pretty helpful.

Yeah, I certainly agree with that. Well, this book is not a memoir of one person's experiences, but you're drawing from what you call a panel of experts, that is people who have been down the cancer journey. Tell us about the reason you made the choice to draw on many people's stories. Well, it made sense to me to do that because I personally have never had cancer, and I don't aspire to.

But I know a whole lot of people who do, and it made sense to me to reach out to them and let them speak to it from personal experience, because I can only speak to it secondhand or kind of from afar. So I chose eight people who have various kinds of cancer, and I just really sat and let them talk from the heart and speak kind of from the trenches. And two of those people are men who have prostate cancer, which is the most common kind of cancer in America among men. Two of those people have breast cancer, which is the most common kind among women. And then the other four have more rare kinds of cancer. One person has ocular melanoma, which is melanoma in your eye. One young lady, the youngest person I interviewed, has Hodgkin's lymphoma. Somebody else has multiple myeloma.

And then the last person has bladder cancer. So they covered this wide spectrum of types of cancer, and they're all walking through this journey. Each journey is unique, but they're all trying to navigate those very real ups and downs of walking with God through a potentially fatal health crisis. And so collectively, I think they did a fantastic job because every one of them is truly walking with God in a deep way that I think will encourage readers to do the same. And that really was my goal, and they spoke to it from their personal experience, and I couldn't do that.

It was kind of cobbled together what they told me with Scripture and things that I had read. Debbie, what are some ways that people typically respond to the initial diagnosis of cancer? I'm talking about both the patient and the caregiver. I think probably typically the response is one of the stages of what we would commonly call the grief cycle. That would be some people respond in denial. It's like, oh, no, no, this is not happening. Or it might be anger, or it might be bargaining with God.

God, if you'll just take this away, I'll do X, Y, or Z. Some people probably plunge right into depression, depending on what they've heard. I don't think most people would initially respond with acceptance, but that's part of the grief cycle.

And we're all familiar now with the grief cycle, but what most people don't know, and I didn't know until I started to look into this a little bit, is that when Elizabeth Kubler-Ross developed what we now call the grief cycle, these stages, she didn't develop it to help people cope with the passing of a loved one. What she originally intended was to explain the stages that people go through as patients when they are confronted with a serious diagnosis like cancer. And so as they come to terms with their cancer, it's probably going to be pretty reflective of the grief cycle, which, Gary, I know you know, is not a nice orderly process.

It's very messy. You can start at any point, cycle back through, think you're fine, and then it'll hit you all again. And I think dealing with cancer is a lot like that.

And so people start out with different kinds of experiences and feelings, but at the end of the day, I think everybody with cancer probably has a pretty common experience when you put it all together. Yeah, I think what I'm reflecting now on Carol and my wife, it's almost like she jumped right to acceptance. The doctor gave her the diagnosis on the phone, and she said to the doctor, okay, then let's do surgery tomorrow.

And he said, I can't do it tomorrow, but I can do it next week, you know. You know, that sounds like Carolyn. Yeah, and she told me the next morning, she didn't tell me that afternoon, because she said I didn't want you to lose sleep. That's Carolyn too. And she told me the next morning, and she said, this is the way it is, and so we're going to do the surgery. We're going to take that first step, and then we'll see whether it requires chemotherapy or radiation or whatever.

You know, so it's almost like she jumped right to that. But I'm sure over that period of the year, you know, there was ups and downs in terms of emotionally, because it's hard. Any way you look at it, it's hard when you're going through that.

So, yeah, I think it's good. What I hear you saying is people do have different types of emotions, and these are five common ways that people tend to respond to the diagnosis. Yeah, you know, I was sitting with my friend when the call came, and he was actually told over the phone, which I'm not so sure was the greatest way to communicate this, but he was told over the phone that they put his chances at 30%. That was before any treatment or recommendation. So fast forward through the last two years, he just was told that he can now consider himself a survivor.

You know, it's completely gone. So what you hear first doesn't mean that God isn't going to be at work through those care providers and through the various therapies and certainly through prayer. It's different for everybody, but that was his experience, and his initial response was absolute shock. I mean, he was unable to speak.

That was very different from Carolyn's response. So I think it depends on a lot of things, you know, where you are in your walk with God, for one thing. Yeah, and your personality, you know, and your past experiences and all those things, I'm sure. If a person's going to the doctor to receive the diagnosis, is it helpful for them to take somebody with them, you know, a spouse or a close friend with them to sit in on that session? I would say yes, for the simple reason that many people respond the way my friend did. Once they hear the word cancer, they don't hear anything else. And I know that's true with the dementia situation too. Once that word is spoken, your mind just takes off and you're processing, processing, processing, and you don't really hear much of what's said after that. So if you have someone else with you, they can listen intently to what's being communicated, maybe even take some notes, and then go back through that with the patient later so that they get the whole picture of, you know, what the doctor really did say.

Yeah, I can really see that. You know, when Carolyn was in the hospital getting ready for the surgery, our daughter came up and spent two or three days, and she was there for everything the doctor said. She was hearing it, you know, and then she was interpreting it to her mother and to me. Of course, our daughter's a medical doctor, and that helped, you know.

She understood some of the terms that we didn't understand. You say that for many people, cancer is a spiritual turning point. What do you mean by that? That idea really came from somebody I interviewed.

Actually, it was the guy with the ocular melanoma. He said, and this is a quote, he said, this is what he said, he said, I don't think anyone is going to get cancer and remain the same. Somebody's either going to really turn from God or run to God. It's one of those two things. And so it is potentially a turning point, whether you're a Christ follower or whether you're an unbeliever. And the reason I say that is for the Christ follower, that's a decision point where they're going to pretty much have to decide, am I going to face this in my own strength, or even though I may be mad at God right now, am I going to face it with the help of God? And that may be the very point at which a person of nominal faith becomes a person of wholehearted faith. For the unbeliever, it's kind of the same thing. They may suddenly be aware that for the first time in their life, they've got a situation that they can't handle in their own strength.

This is bigger than them. And suddenly there's the realization that they need God. They need salvation.

They need God's help on a daily basis to make it through. So no matter who you are, there is the potential that a cancer diagnosis could be a turning point in your faith. I can see that. And I can see people coming to Christ.

When you're at the end of the road, where are you going if you don't run toward God? So, yeah. And now a Christian who is walking with God and gets a cancer diagnosis, the journey is different for them, right? Because they've got this close connection to God. Yeah, absolutely. You know, the Christian has a resource that unbelievers don't have. And that is the continuous presence of the Holy Spirit in their lives and the ability of God to speak comfort to you through the Scriptures.

So, yes. Now, you mentioned some of the emotions that people may feel as they're walking through the cancer journey. And one of them you mentioned was anger. Let's talk a little bit about anger.

Is that a common response to a cancer diagnosis and the journey? And how do you respond to anger in healthy ways? Yeah, anger is a common response. And in fact, one of the devotional days that I wrote is devoted to anger. And one of the people I interviewed tells his story of that being his response to anger. It's a normal response because it's one of those phases of the grief cycle. And Christians tend to have a little bit of trouble with anger thinking, it's not okay for me to feel this anger. But it's okay because it's part of the grief cycle. God is the author of the grief cycle. He's the author of all human emotions. In Scripture, we see where even God experiences anger. And so God gave us the capacity to feel that.

And it's just a feeling. Anger is just a feeling. It's neither right nor wrong in and of itself. It's what you do with your anger that can be right or wrong. But for most people, it's part of coping. Maybe not initially, but at some point it would be normal to feel some anger.

And that could be anger at the health care system or anger at God for allowing cancer in your life, or angry that your friends and family are perfectly healthy and you're not feeling well at all. So the important thing is feel what you feel. Be honest with God.

You can't fool him. He knows what you feel anyway. And just make sure that you dispel the energy of anger in a way that doesn't harm other people.

That's the key thing. So the Scripture you alluded to earlier, when you are angry, don't sin. It's okay to feel anger, but don't sin in your anger. So how do you process anger then in a positive manner?

Well, I think you hit on it when you said personality earlier. I think different people are going to process it differently. Some people, like writers, might get on their laptop and just pound out all their feelings onto a computer screen or even a piece of paper. Other people who tend to be more maybe dramatic might need to go hammer some nails or really beat a tennis ball against a wall. Or people who are highly verbal might need to get into the car and just roll up the windows and just yell.

I mean, it just really depends on how you're wired. But the common important thing is make sure you don't hurt other people with your anger. Can I ask you, Debbie, you mentioned early on that your parents were both diagnosed at some point. I don't know how old you were, but did you experience the anger thing, the questions, or did it go a little more subterranean with you as your parents struggled with that? I think for me, personality-wise, it was more just deep sadness.

And if you knew my family dynamic and kind of the background of that, you would probably say that makes sense. It's just a grief that my mom in particular had just gotten her life to a point where she could really be herself, really enjoy life. And out of the blue, there came this diagnosis.

In her case, it was colon cancer, and it was very, very, very late when it was discovered. So it was a sad time for me. Well, I think anyone, whether they're a child or whether they're a spouse of someone who has a cancer diagnosis, there's going to be sadness because, you know, it's not something that any of us want to have. So I think your response was certainly a normal response.

Let me ask you this. If you are a child, adult child of someone who has cancer, or if you're a spouse or a really, really close friend, how about your own emotions? Do you need to be careful about sharing your own negative emotions with the patient?

How do you feel about that? I think that's a really important thing to talk about because you want to be real, right? You don't want to stifle what you're really thinking and feeling. However, some of that might be better shared with someone other than the person with cancer because if you are very emotional or very even, you know, tearful or hysterical or angry or whatever it is, that really isn't going to equip that person to stay positive and focused, you know, for their journey.

I don't know. There's a balance. You want to be real and you want to be genuine with someone, but I think you do need to be discerning about what you share with the person. You don't want to be overly negative because they need the encouragement to fight the battle that's in front of them. Yeah, because if you, as a caregiver, feel angry about this, you know, God, this is not fair, you know, this is my mom, my dad, my brother, my sister.

I mean, they've been following you for years and now you've allowed this to happen. It's okay, again, to feel anger and even to have those thoughts, but those are not the kind of things you share with the patient, right? Because now they have to preach to you and say, wait a minute, now God's in control, you know. So we can process our anger and other emotions. What I hear you saying is with ourselves or with someone else, but not pouring out, especially our negative emotions to the patient.

Yeah, yeah. And that, you know, brings to mind something that I talk about in the devotional. This kind of triggers a nice segue to that idea. And that's the idea of being a protector versus a promoter in that person's life. You know, I got this idea actually from a cancer and oncology dietitian here in Winston-Salem that I know. And she blogged about something related to diet, but, you know, as is so often the case, something in the physical realm has a corresponding truth in the spiritual realm.

And I really saw one here. She wrote that when you have cancer, you know, what you put into your body obviously matters. And she said protector foods are the ones that give your body, you know, the nourishment to function at its best and to fight the cancer. Promoter foods have the opposite effect.

You know, they break down your body's ability to protect itself from disease. And so I drew a parallel from that thinking, you know, what you put into your mind is either going to strengthen or weaken your ability to stay positive, you know, while you're going through this. I think that the media and people are the two biggest things to consider. You know, the music you listen to, the movies you watch, what you read on the Internet, and the people that you interact with. You know, they can either be protectors that empower you and encourage you, or they can be promoters that kind of fill your mind with negativity and fear. And so I feel that if you're the patient, to take care of yourself, you have to be very discerning about what you let in your ear gate, your eye gate, and also not to be afraid to limit time with people who are a bit negative or instill fear because you do need those resources conserved, you know, to fight the battle. Yeah. And as a caregiver or someone that's concerned, what I would hear you saying is also we have to be careful whether what we're saying is promoting their health and their positive response or whether we're, you know, making it harder for them.

Absolutely. You have to be kind of intentional about it. You just can't be totally transparent, off the cuff, you know, in consideration for the battle that person is already fighting. Debbie, I had a friend who had a tumor, a brain tumor, and the first, once in high school with him, he's in medicine, he's a medical professional. So he had a lot of experience with this type of thing, and when he was diagnosed, his first response to all of his friends was, I'm going to kick this thing in the rear end, you know, I'm going to win, they're going to beat this, it's a fight, it's just this Herculean battle that he was going through. And I wanted to ask you, is that a good frame of mind?

Everybody has a different personality. For him, it was like Rocky getting into the ring with cancer. What do you think about that? Well, I think it sure beats a negative outlook.

I think possibly, I'm curious, I'll ask you, you know, a question. As that journey unfolded, did that perspective change for him? I think it did, especially because he got to the point where the tumor was inoperable, and things went south from where he wanted them, and he passed away. I have another friend who's exactly the opposite of it, and who has said, I don't treat cancer as my enemy, I treat cancer as something that God has at least allowed in his sovereign plan, he's at least allowed it into my life, and so I allow cancer to teach me whatever it is that God wants to teach me through it, so it was more of an embracing rather than I'm going to beat this or chase it away. I like his perspective because the reality is we're not in control, and I think a best-case scenario is to look at it as you have been given an opportunity to trust God differently than you've ever had to trust him before, and God will bring good out of that. We're really dealing somewhat with, on the negative side, is the fear, and the fear is a natural emotion as well when you have cancer, because we don't know what the outcome is going to be. It seems to me a Christian is better prepared to handle fear, but what would you say?

I would say yes, because again, that draws upon this resource we have that the unbeliever doesn't, which is God's ability to speak to us through the Scriptures, and here's how I tie that together. Cancer is scary. There are a lot of unknowns, but if we spend too much time thinking about them, without realizing it, what we're really starting to do is meditate on our fears, and at that point, it can be really overwhelming. The fear can overwhelm your balance, and so the cure for that is to do kind of a mental pivot, and once you realize that's what you're doing, stop meditating on what's frightening you, and start meditating on what's true.

And what is always true, the truest thing that we can even access, is whatever God's word tells us. So my encouragement would be to choose some verses that speak to that fear, that thing you're most afraid of, and then to begin to deliberately meditate on those verses. And you know, Gary, as my pastor, you've actually taught me how to do that, and that's meditating, focusing in on every single individual word, you know, and kind of soaking the meaning from it. And then you put it all back together, and you think about that verse as a whole, and you let your heart hear that verse as something God is speaking to you personally, and then you ingrain that verse into your mind so that when you start to feel afraid, that verse, you can pull it out, and you can refocus from fear to faith, you know, by using the word of God.

And that idea actually got into the book because of something a person I interviewed told me. She said, you know, you're going to feel sick, and you're not going to feel like reaching for your Bible and going to the concordance and looking things up. So she kind of did that ahead of time, and she put these verses all over her house. She put them by her nightstand, in her purse, in the kitchen, so that no matter where she was, you know, when she started to feel afraid or worried or whatever it was, she could just reach out and have the verses that were most meaningful to her. So what I did was I created an appendix for this book of nothing but verses so that if the person is feeling sick and all they can really handle is just opening the book, if they turn to the appendix, you know, it's all there. You know, verses to meditate on are all there.

Yeah, that's great. I know Carolyn, my wife, had some verses on the refrigerator that were there before she even got the diagnosis. You know, she typically puts up a few verses. And so she said when she got the diagnosis, she went to the refrigerator, and she read those words that she had already put on there.

I don't know if they're so ahead of that. And she said it was just God talking to me. It was exactly what I needed to hear at that juncture, you know. So the Word of God is powerful in terms of ministering to us emotionally when we're going through the cancer journey, or any other great difficulty for that matter. I remember another thing my wife said was that when she was at her lowest physically and emotionally, she said, Gary, I was so weak I couldn't even pray. She said, but the verses that I memorized when I was younger just kept floating through my mind while I was laying there, you know. And she said it was just like God reminding me that he was with me in the middle of all of this. So yeah, I think for the Christian, the Scriptures are just super powerful as we're walking through this journey.

Let me talk about another topic. The Scriptures say, in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God. Now, expressing gratitude in the midst of the cancer journey doesn't sound kind of normal to me. How do you fit that into the cancer journey?

Well, again, I thought about this because of one of the people that I interviewed. His take on this, it made me look up the word grateful in the dictionary. And grateful means appreciative of benefits received. And so the irony is that sometimes it takes something shocking like a cancer diagnosis to open our eyes to benefits that we already have, but maybe we're not really grateful for. And in his case, he said, cancer hasn't changed how I view God, but it certainly has changed me. He said, it has made me grateful for the things that I've always taken for granted. It made me start living now how I wish I would always have lived.

And his reference for that was his wife and his two boys, people that he loved but had more or less taken for granted. And when cancer suddenly threatened, perhaps, a future with them, he saw them in a completely different light. And I think that for a thoughtful person, that can be the impact of cancer. Gratitude for things that you've already got, you know, grateful, appreciative of benefits received. You've already got those benefits, and so you see them differently. And I think doing that actually has a trickle-down effect on how you face the cancer. So they're not really, they seem unrelated at first, but I think they're actually related because it has a lot to do with how you will face the journey. Yeah, I can see that, you know. And you're not necessarily thanking God that you got cancer, but you are looking for things that you can thank God for.

You said some in the past, you know, that you've just taken for granted, and then others in terms of what God is doing as you walk through the journey, so yeah. Debbie, in the book you use the term brain fog, you know, lack of focus, hazy thinking. It's a common effect of treatment of cancer.

How do you handle those struggles when you can hardly even organize your own thoughts? Yeah, brain fog, it's real. People have assured me that it is definitely real. It's not imaginary, it is a result of, can be chemo or radiation.

And actually I just learned it's also a residual impact for some people from COVID-19, which has nothing to do with cancer, but I thought that was pretty interesting. I think about Psalm 139 verse 2, it says of God, you understand my thought from afar. When you have brain fog, it's really nice to know that even though you're kind of groping around in the brain fog, you know, God sees everything crystal clear. So when you can't find the right word, God knows exactly what you mean.

And when you can't find your keys, you can't find your phone, you know, God knows where they are, and he can help you find them. And when you can't get organized, you know, when you step back and think, you know, the God who ordered the universe is hearing your prayer, and he's got infinite patience, you know, to help you get your ducks in a row. So the encouragement that I want to give on brain fog is number one, don't be too hard on yourself because this is not a flaw in you.

This is not your fault. This is part of the journey. And then number two, something I mentioned a little while ago, is that brain fog is one of those opportunities to trust God differently than you've ever needed to trust him before.

You know, to just kind of take a step back to just not stress and just in that moment just pray, you know, because God sees right into the brain fog and he sees everything clearly. So it's real, but I think it's definitely an opportunity to lean on God differently, which will have a great impact in the long run, I think. Sometimes cancer changes the body in ways that may not be visible to other people or in ways that are sometimes temporary and sometimes they're permanent. What encouragement is there for the one who's struggling with their body image, you know, loss of hair, loss of weight, you know, those kind of things? Yeah, that's a real part of it for so many people, you know, depending on their type of cancer and how they treat it. It's something that the experts call psychosocial, meaning they not only affect that person psychologically, they affect that person socially. You know, suddenly they might feel self-conscious or they might be grieving what's happened and feel like now they're different, now they're different from other people, which can change, you know, the way that they interact with other people. So this is a process and you're not going to probably change the perspective of your body image overnight.

It's going to be a process. One thing that I think is helpful for the Christ follower, again, you know, look into Scripture. I love the verse 1 Samuel 16, 7. It says, the Lord doesn't see things the way you see them. The Lord looks at the heart. And so no matter what's changing, it's comforting and it's encouraging that the one who knows you best is only ever always looking at your heart and we grow through these difficulties.

And so the very thing that is causing us, you know, to maybe respond to people differently can also cause us to respond to God differently in a good way. Eventually, you know, that connection with God can inspire the confidence that that person needs to go forward in their new normal. Now, you call the chapter on asking for help.

You give it this title, The Hardest Part. Why is it so hard for us to accept help from other people? Is there a better way to offer help rather than just saying, well, you know, if you need me, call me? This again grew out of one of the interviews I did. The youngest person I talked to said that for her, and she'd been through quite a lot, and her assessment that the hardest part of all of this was just letting people do something for you.

And I was rather taken back by that. And she said it's because for her, she doesn't like the inconvenience people. And this came up again with somebody else that I interviewed. He said, and I think he pretty much nailed it, he said that in his case, it's because of pride. We're so independent, we're so self-sufficient that even when we have cancer, we don't want to admit that we need help. But he pointed out being humble is something God wants to create in us anyway, as opposed to being prideful. You know, God is looking for humble hearts. And so as we kind of brainstormed through this, the realization kind of surfaced that when a person is willing to set their pride in receiving help aside and instead to humbly say, yes, I'll accept your help, what happens is really a wonderful thing because now people can use their gifts.

You know, the people who have resources to contribute, maybe to pay a medical bill or help with insurance or something like that. Now they can release those resources and people who are wired by God, gifted to serve, can now serve. And so when humility replaces pride, everybody gets blessed. And we normally don't think of it that way. We only think of how we want to be so independent and how we don't want to inconvenience people. But if people are asking to help, it's good to take a moment and put the pride down and, you know, just humbly receive some things. It was kind of a profound realization, I think, for me to think of it in those terms, because we all deal with pride.

You know, you don't have to have cancer to be aware that you're prideful. And, you know, to your other question about is there a better way to offer help, I would say yes. Because typically what we do is we say something like, hey, just, you know, just call me if you need anything.

And we kind of put the ball in the court of the person with the disease. But a better approach that's really harder to turn down would be to be very specific and say something like, I'd like to pay a bill for you this month. Will you let me do that? Or to say, I'd like to line up some people to drive you to your radiation treatments.

Would you please give me your appointment schedule? That's a lot easier to say yes to than just a generic blanket, hey, call me if you need me. Because of those things that those two people mentioned, they don't want to inconvenience you. And it's hard. You know, it's just hard to ask for help. So that makes it easy for them to accept it.

Debbie, I like that emphasis. Because as you say, both the things you said, one is that if you allow people to help you, you're giving them an opportunity to utilize their gifts for God. And you're right, I hadn't thought about that in that way.

But you are, you're doing them a service by letting them serve you. And then the whole thing, you know, this socially acceptable idea of just saying, if you need me, call me or if there's anything I can do for you, let me know. And, you know, typically in life, we mean that, but it's just kind of a social greeting. Like, you know, in the South, we say, y'all come to see us. If everybody came to see us and we told y'all come to see us, we'd have a house full.

So, yeah, I like the idea of being specific. So, Debbie, let me just say this. I want to thank you for taking time to put this book together. You know, I think I told you this, but we are giving a copy of this book, this devotional book, to every member of our church who has cancer. And I would just encourage if they're church leaders that are listening, this is the kind of thing a church can do that was going to bless the people in the church who are going through this journey. Thanks for the efforts you put into writing it, and I'm just praying that God's going to use this to bring a lot of encouragement and practical help to those who are going through this journey. So, thanks for being with us today. Thank you, Gary, for having me. I've really enjoyed the conversation. My guess is this program came at just the right time for somebody who's listening.

If that's you, let me give you the title of the resource again. It's Strength for the Cancer Journey, 30 Days of Inspiration, Encouragement, and Comfort. We have it linked at the website, FiveLoveLanguages.com.

Again, go to FiveLoveLanguages.com. And next week, how to turn your grumbling into gratitude. Well, what does it mean to be thankful in everything?

Find out in one week. Our thanks to our engineer, Steve Wick, and our coordinating producer, Janice Todd. Building Relationships with Dr. Gary Chapman is a production of Moody Radio in Chicago in association with Moody Publishers, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute. Thanks for listening.