July 1st Answered Prayers

A few days ago, I was praying desperately that God would once again show me His call or provide some sort of vision so that I can look ahead with meaning and purpose. Let me share with you how God has answered me.

In discouragement I decided to google one of my teachers in graduate school to seek some inspiration. Beth has been a wonderful role model - she is an extremely talented psychotherapist invested in the integration of analytic psychology and spiritual formation. Better still, she inspires you to draw near to God. Beth was first diagnosed with breast cancer 5 days after giving birth to her daughter just when she was ready to launch her teaching career. I was then first year in my doctoral studies at Rosemead School of Psychology and remembered praying for her. After battling the first round and recovered, her breast cancer re-occurred 7 years later, this time already metastasized to the bones. By then I just began my journey as a faculty member at Azusa Pacific University and became a colleague of her husband. The couple is well known to our community of Christian psychologist at Fuller, Rosemead and APU.

Indeed I found an article on the internet written by Beth. [‘Winter Meets Its Death', Psychoanalytic Inquiry, (2008) 28: 5, 599 — 611]. She shared about how her terminal illness impacted one of her patients and in the process of encountering grief, loss, death and dying; both became more alive to God and to others. Let me quote her:
“These clinicians seemed to be more “alive” as they faced their own deaths or their clients’ deaths—more alive to grief and anguish, but also more alive to the possibility of connections across loss and realms of being. Both psychoanalysis and spirituality provide an opportunity for us to develop in our capacity to become more relationally alive. We have the privilege and the call from our human nature to do all in our power, via relationships, to move ourselves and our patients towards the full experience of being alive—for the glory of God."

Beth’s perspective as a psychotherapist committed to spiritual transformation is particularly enlightening. After reading the article I “rediscovered” my call. The Lord refreshed my memories and reminded me what my first love was. I bumped into a teaching career “accidentally” but certainly in the perfect will of God. My call (and my passion) was actually a very simple one; the projects and programs are in fact secondary.

Well, by the amazing grace of God, Beth continued to live – she has been through all sorts of chemotherapy and treatment for the past 10 years. One chemo drug failed and then another worked for a while…but she continued to live vibrantly. She now had a blog as part of a research project at UCLA. I went to her blog and read all her previous newsletters (for the past 10 years) in 2 days. I knew of some of these events as a colleague of her husband but now I can really shared her experience as a breast cancer patient. On the concrete side, I learned about how she handled side effects. Well her veins have lasted for 10 years. There were so many things (psycho-spiritual stuff) I could easily identify with. God used her writings to encourage, comfort, and revive me. Moreover, I learned from Beth’s life that God can keep us occupied with gladness of heart (Eccl 5:18-20) and indeed we can live our lives as a drink offering like Paul in his good fight (2 Tim 4:6-7). All this can occur even in the midst of recurrence of cancer. [My prayer in June 27th blog entry “Back on Track?” was indeed answered. May God help me live life fully!!]

I figured writing this blog is indeed good and therapeutic for me. Now I realize it may also bless someone later on down the road.

Thank you for all your sharing and comments.