When Dr. Steven Rosenberg stepped to the podium at Bethesda Naval Hospital and announced, “The President has cancer,” the relationship between Ronald Reagan and the American public shifted. The symbol of American strength now seemed weak, vulnerable, subject to alien invasion. People wondered, Can he continue to lead?
What happens when leaders fall weak and seem unable to lead? I have wondered about this since cancer struck me-and my ministry. What happens when those called to minister to the needs of others suddenly find their own needs overwhelming?
My first brush with cancer was in 1972, an occurrence of lymphoma. A lump was removed, and I was given radiation treatments to assure me of no further threat. I had left that in my past.
But in the autumn of 1984, my enemy returned.
Until then, the year ahead had looked bright. My ministry was going well. A long-cherished sabbatical awaited in the winter months. We had recently hired a new associate whose creativity and commitment indicated great things ahead. Our family life promised a wedding of one son, the college graduation of another, and our silver wedding anniversary.
One morning while showering, I discovered a small lump in my groin. Despite the hot shower, suddenly I felt cold. It had given me no warning. But I knew the lump had to be checked.
An examination led to minor surgery. It took a few days for the lump to be analyzed. Friday morning following the operation, I met with the surgeon to find out the test results.
“It’s malignant, Howard,” he said. “Hodgkin’s disease. You have cancer.”
His words pierced me. But a pastor is not allowed time to bleed. I had to conduct a wedding rehearsal in just a few hours and tomorrow, the wedding. Then two worship services the next day. I had to share in others’ joys and carry their sorrows.
I wondered, Is there no time to bear my own sorrows? Do I not even have the luxury of privacy for my weeping?
My agony extended through four weeks of consultation, testing, and analysis. One machine after another carefully scanned my body. Needles probed beneath my skin, examining this, drawing out that. Conversations with doctors provided tidbits of information until one thing became clear: surgery was necessary, major surgery.
Questions I’d never asked before suddenly dominated my mind: Will my congregation allow me to be weak? Should I admit my fears to them? Or is a leader always strong? Can I grieve over my own pain when others are hurting?
It soon became impossible for me to always be strong. I “knew” that before, of course. But now it was becoming obvious to the congregation that I was hurting and scared.
I found comfort in the thought that it would be dishonest to keep my struggles from those with whom I was most intimately united. Over the weeks I shared my hurt; I expressed my fears. I let them know I did not like these circumstances. But I also made it clear I believed God was in control, and whatever the circumstances, he would lead us through.
In a few weeks I set aside all pastoral duties to enter the hospital. I checked in as a patient where I had ministered to so many others before.
The surgical instructions called for a spleenectomy and a staging laparotomy. I sat in my room the night before looking out the window onto the street below. Not long before, I’d stood on that very street, waiting at the starting line of a twenty-five kilometer run. Would I ever run again? Would I ever be healthy again? I felt a strange mixture of faith and fear. Cancer is my enemy; God is my friend, I mused. I seem to be in the hands of both.
When the hour of surgery approached my family gathered around my bed, and I led them in prayer. I expressed firm faith in the love of our heavenly Father, who would never in an hour of such need desert us. But a few minutes later when they wheeled me toward the surgical suite, fear gripped my soul. I wanted to jump off the cart and run.
After the surgery, I found myself with tubes protruding from various parts of my body. My weakness was frightening; the least movement seemed to overextend me. I hovered between consciousness and unconsciousness, with searing pain. But greater than all such pain was the anxiety of wondering what the tests would show and the future would hold.
Good news often comes mixed with bad. The reports from surgery indicated no other malignancy was found. Yet radiation therapy would be necessary-six weeks of weakness, discomfort, and nausea.
There is something terrifyingly lonely about receiving radiation treatments. Attendants lead you into a room insulated with lead so the powerful rays will reach no one else. After positioning you under the linear accelerator, they leave, and the door clicks shut behind them. A little red light on the wall goes on and a faint whirr is heard from the machine. You don’t feel anything, but you know deadly rays are piercing your body and everyone else is on the outside because they don’t want to be subjected to them. You are absolutely alone-except for the Lord.
My faith desperately needed to be nurtured. So I began the devotional exercise of reciting “God knows me” and “I belong to God.” Forty-one times I could repeat those two phrases while the red light burned and the machine whirred. While the machine was doing its work, I was begging my spirit to put its trust in God.
After six weeks of treatment, I was told I could resume normal duties. It had been nearly three months since this whole traumatic process had begun. I wondered how my relationship with the congregation had changed. For six weeks I had not served them at all and for a couple of months I had worked only part time. Previously I had been the one to represent the Great Healer in their lives. Now I was the one who needed healing. Will they see me in the same light? I wondered. Will they receive me in the same way?
I’m not sure I fully comprehend cancer’s impact on my ministry. I can simply gather the evidence, watch how it has shaped me and my relationships. Since human behavior and relationships do not fall into neat categories, some of my reflections may even seem contradictory. In any event, here are some of the complex influences spawned by my illness.
Reclaiming My Role
Cancer had a subtle but unmistakable impact on my role in the congregation. As pastor, ministering to people in crises, I seemed to gain a fresh honesty and realism. But complicating this, it became easy for conversations to shift toward me and my welfare instead of staying on those to whom I was ministering. People would ask, “How are you, Pastor? Can you work a full schedule? Is all this too much for you?” My limitations, at least as perceived by a number of parishioners, sometimes sidetracked ministry to them.
As a leader in the church, I felt almost a lame duck. I’m sure it was unintentional and unconscious on people’s part, but for several months following my sickness, I felt my words and recommendations had less credence. Were people assuming we couldn’t aggressively plan our church program because I might not be strong enough to lead it, or even be here? I kept wondering, Have I become more timid and less willing to lead? Do they really see me differently, or is this only my perception?
I still don’t know which it was. But this dynamic made me insecure. Only through my wife’s gentle, supportive assistance was I able to accept what seemed to be happening. Looking back, I’m convinced the core of the congregation and I went through a disorganization stage similar to what often occurs in the grief process. It took six disconcerting months for us to move beyond that. I imagine others would share such an experience.
Accepting Limitations
Depression is so irrational. There may be many reasons for not being depressed, but they don’t alter the mood at all. I had been warned of the possibility of mild depression after major surgery. But I had discounted the idea, thinking it certainly would not happen to me. After all, I thought, I will be so grateful to be healthy and able to work again that “the blues” won’t get a foothold.
When the treatments ended, I was pleased how quickly my strength returned. With a kind of euphoria, I threw myself into pastoring, preaching, and teaching. If someone asked how I felt, I was quick to say, “Super!” (I wonder, as I look back, if I was trying to deny my mortality and convince myself I was beyond the bounds of further disease.) Four to six months later, the blues crept up on me.
As I wrestled with depression, I read again of Elijah, who had the thrill of victory on Mount Carmel but a chapter later stands on Mount Horeb discouraged, beaten, exhausted, and unable to recall earlier victories. It isn’t far from Carmel to Horeb.
I came to see that productive ministry requires pacing. Perhaps fatigue had lowered my resistance. Perhaps I had given too much too soon. Often we need others to help us develop our stride. I needed my wife’s support to become a better steward of my body.
Growing Closer, Drifting Away
Pastors and leaders often assume, perhaps correctly, that others expect us always to appear on top of everything. We often expect it of ourselves. But sudden and critical illness rips that mask away. It’s simply impossible to appear in control on your way to the hospital with what everybody knows is a serious disease.
I discovered my initial worry that people would not hold dear a “sick pastor” was unfounded. Quite the opposite occurred.
In normal pastoral experience, we discover relationships deepen as we walk through crises with people. Sickness or family tragedy often bonds a family and pastor. When the situation was reversed and I, the pastor, was going through the crisis, similar bonding took place. Parishioners realized their pastor was also deeply in need of support. Many became more comfortable in expressing their love. I learned, as Paul told us, koinonia will increase not only as we rejoice together but also as we weep together.
Though pleasantly surprised to find many relationships deepening, I was not prepared for the opposite. Traumatic experiences can also distance people. My initial anger caused some of that distance.
When I was still struggling to accept the reality of my cancer, a colleague stopped by to express his concern. He left me with a verse aimed to comfort and encourage me-Jeremiah 29:11-“For I know the plans I have for you . . . plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” My heart was arguing, Sure, you can recite those fine words because you are healthy and active in your ministry, but if you were in my place, it wouldn’t look so sure to you! I sensed my anger driving him away.
Today, however, I have his name and the date marked in the margin of my Bible, for it was a beautiful gift he gave me that day. But that was not my initial reaction.
Sometimes the gap was widened by others. An American Cancer Society publication had warned that some people would feel awkward in my presence because they did not know how to deal with the emotions associated with cancer. “Cancer,” the booklet cautioned, “can change the pattern of many relationships.” Some people did act awkward around me.
And what was true of friends within the congregation was also true of colleagues. Some colleagues came to lovingly be my pastor under the circumstances, while some seemed to avoid me. Since that time I have occasionally brought up the subject of cancer in various social settings. I have consistently noticed that though some are at ease with the subject, others immediately recoil.
Walking Through Open Doors
I have often noticed the comments Paul makes in his epistles concerning doors opened to him. He was aware that influences beyond his control determined the opening of those doors. Certain circumstances in our lives, too, such as diseases like mine, open doors previously closed. I have had the opportunity to communicate with other cancer patients on a level not previously possible. I find it easier now to keep from falling into the trap of Job’s three friends who gave glib answers to suffering.
To some parishioners, it is OK now to shed tears in my presence. It’s also OK to be honest about embarrassing struggles. One parishioner admitted, “You know, Pastor, I couldn’t even pray while I was first recovering. I thought something must be terribly wrong with me until I heard you say you experienced the same thing.”
I have had the opportunity to preach the subjects of fear and faith, trust and distrust, peace and warfare, hope and helplessness, on a deeper level than before. For example, many passages in the Bible tell us to “fear not.” I’ve preached them many times-simplistically. But fighting cancer, I knew the constant tension between faith and fear. It simply is not true to say, “If you have faith, then you won’t have fear.” I had both in great measure. My taste of fear sensitized me to the fears many of my parishioners experience-a marriage going sour, a child rebelling, a business on the rocks. I see now the pews before me filled with parishioners bearing fear-and faith.
I found doors open to new understanding of certain Scripture passages. I’ve often been puzzled by Paul’s statement in Philippians 4 that he had learned contentment. In twenty-three years of preaching, I never dared touch that passage; I never felt I fully grasped what Paul had in mind. But while I walked through the valley of cancer, I wrestled hard with Paul.
He claims to have learned “the secret of being content in any and every situation” (Phil. 4:12). I hated my cancer. How could I be content? Would Paul be someone who liked cancer? Should I? I read that passage over and over. God’s Spirit finally opened my mind to see that contentment is not arriving at a situation in which we like our present circumstances, but instead it is confidence that God is able to provide all we need in those circumstances.
Now I understood how Paul could make such a testimony and how I could, too. I did not like cancer, but I could honestly say Christ had given me strength enough to face it (Phil. 4:13).
I found I could lead people to a contentment where realism and faith were partners.
Modeling Trust and Hope
Leaders must be conscious that many eyes are on them while they work through a life-changing experience.
I had preached many years about trust. Then shortly after my surgery I had to face the fact that my upcoming sabbatical would have to be canceled. I was tempted to be angry and to mope around in self-pity. But that would have contradicted everything I had previously said about trust. I saw God was giving me an opportunity to illustrate to my parishioners exactly what trust is. With that in mind, I accepted the cancellation and tried to keep a clear testimony that trust in God enables us to handle disappointments.
Trust and hope were not always easy to maintain. Often I found people too ready to say about my cancer, “This must be the will of God.” Instead I wanted to imagine the Lord saying, “I don’t like this cancer any more than you do, so let’s fight it together and conquer it!”
Another cancer patient shared her frustration that when her friends told her to “only take one day at a time,” they really meant for her to give up her future. She couldn’t do that. She needed solid hope for the future to unleash her energies against defeatism and the invasion of the disease.
I know there are many mysteries and debates concerning the will of God in matters of suffering, but I have come to see that moving aggressively and militantly against such diseases is probably more in line with the will of God than any other response.
I belong to a church tradition that has not emphasized direct and striking healings. We believe in healing and pray for it regularly, but we are not so quick to highlight it when it happens. Through the intervention of his power and the application of medical science, God has healed me. I have received a clean bill of health and have been able to resume full pastoral duties with the same energy level I had before. In fact, I’m putting the finishing touches on this article soon after returning from those months of sabbatical study that had been postponed. My parishioners know the time of study and refreshment was doubly meaningful to me because of the postponement.
Consequently, I have become a symbol of healing-once fearing a death sentence and now enjoying life. I am a symbol of hope-once tempted to panic because there might be no tomorrow and now eagerly planning for the future. I have become a reminder that God does act. I stand in the presence of people who are wrestling with disease, wondering whether there is any possibility of healing, and my presence holds out hope.
Dealing with cancer is always difficult. Dealing with it in the manse adds complex new dimensions. There is little privacy when it is needed so much. But there is a support group that is larger than ever.
Perhaps the pastorate is an ideal location for struggles like mine. When my body was pained and weak, there was a larger body around me that was strong. My experience gave visible evidence that God can turn even our weakness into a ministry strength.
Howard D. Vanderwell is pastor of Hillcrest Christian Reformed Church in Hudsonville, Michigan.
Copyright © 1986 by the author or Christianity Today/Leadership Journal. Click here for reprint information on Leadership Journal.
