Live Life Joyfully

This is the day which Jehovah hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. Psalm 118:24

As the director of pastoral care at Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA), I have the opportunity to conduct new patient orientation interviews with most of our new patients. You might find it helpful to “listen in” to the conversation I have with patients every day, all day long. These are some of the points I try to make in each session.

Treat where you trust. It’s important you find a healthcare team you truly trust. At CTCA, we try to earn their trust in two ways: 1. How we treat the patient as a human being. We live out the Golden Rule as well or better than most of the churches I’ve pastored. Our patients are not numbers, but human beings deserving of all of the respect and dignity we would pay to members of our own family. 2. How we treat the disease of cancer. We employ an “integrative medicine” model, which means that we treat body, mind and soul. A useful metaphor is that of caring for a sick plant: we treat the plant (i.e. the disease, through chemotherapy, radiation or surgery) but we also treat the soil (the ingredients that create and sustain life, such as nutrition, but also the spiritual and emotional aspects of our being). After all, what good would it do to treat the plant, but not water and fertilize the soil?

A case in point is a study done at Beth Israel hospital in Boston, where medical oncologists engaged in a simple interview with cancer patients, without knowing anything about their disease. Afterward, they were asked to determine whether they thought the patient was likely to become a long-term survivor of cancer. The doctors were accurate to an 88 percent degree of accuracy. The primary red flag, for those they didn’t think would survive, was chronic anxiety.

There’s no silver bullet in cancer treatment. Helping people cope effectively with their cancer doesn’t guarantee they’ll survive their disease, but coping effectively (i.e. learning to be peaceful, hopeful and optimistic) does significantly increase the likelihood of their survival.

For example, Dr. Stephen Locke from Harvard Medical School did a study where he compared people who had high stress and high coping mechanisms vs. those who had high stress with low coping mechanisms. His research concluded that those with “high coping mechanisms” had bodies that produced three times the number of NK (natural killer) cells, which is the body's foot-solider in the fight against cancer. In other words, helping people learn how to cope with their anxiety can be the difference between life and death. We help them learn how to cope with their anxiety by teaching them what the Bible suggests is the way all people of faith ought to face adversity, including cancer: with joy.

Live your life joyfully. Once the patient has found the healthcare team they trust, we encourage them to live their life with some sense of joy, hopefulness and optimism. In fact, I teach people how to be happy, as many of our patients simply don’t know how to be anything but sad and depressed. Psalm 118:24 reminds us, “This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.” We actually teach our patients how to be happy, even during cancer treatment.

The two rules of happiness are: 1. It takes effort to be happy. Nothing is going to make you feel good that doesn’t require you doing good. Religiously, that includes worship, Bible study, prayer and altruistic efforts to help someone less fortunate than yourself. Whenever we engage in these things, ordinarily we feel better having made the effort to do them. Non-religiously, reading books, listening to music, drawing pictures, doing puzzles, writing letters etc. are some of the things that can make your heart sing.

Harvard Medical School recently published the findings of a study on depression. Their research indicated that the most effective way of treating depression, over the long term, was behavioral activation therapy. In other words: doing things that make you feel good. We encourage our patients to stay active and engaged in life by doing things that enthuse and inspire them and others. 2. It takes no effort to be unhappy. People who neglect their garden for two weeks will return to weeds, which didn’t even need to be planted. Our thoughts are much like a garden. If we are not continually thinking good thoughts, which is penultimate to doing good things, we will, due to our sin nature, fall into negativity and despair. Depression is the great enemy of cancer patients as it strips their will to live.

Good pastoral care, in my view, helps patients, particularly those who are Christians, experience joy on the pathway of life, regardless of what their external circumstances might be. “Joy,” after all, is a spiritual gift (see Gal. 5:22); our inheritance as people of the Cross. We mustn’t let cancer or any other problem take from us that which God, through His Holy Spirit, has given to us.

Remember: The Apostle Paul wrote this from a Roman jail: “Rejoice always, and again I say rejoice (Gal. 4:4)!” If he can experience peacefulness, contentment and joy in a prison cell, we ought to be able to experience cheerfulness, hopefulness and optimism wherever we are….. but only if we try.

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