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Spiritual Care

eath is a spiritual event.  When the terminally-ill patient and his family are confronted with it, they experience a pain that can only be called “spiritual”.  This pain comes to believer and unbeliever alike, and comes as the result of the fact that the “apple cart” of our belief system gets upset.  The struggle begins with the shock of learning that we, or one we love, has a life-limiting illness. We face painful issues that we usually avoid when life is going well.

We are confronted with reviewing and evaluating our lives.  We think about how we “spent” them, and must deal with the resulting regrets and guilt, joy and satisfaction.  We struggle with the issue of giving and receiving forgiveness.  We examine our priorities and values, especially as they touch our relationships with others.  We struggle with issues about God-what we really believe and feel about life after death.  The “Why?” questions come hard and fast and they are no longer theoretical.  The issues we face include fear vs. trust, attachment vs. letting go, the sense of the presence of God vs. the sense of our having been abandoned by Him, and our having a head knowledge vs. a heart knowledge of God.

Here are some suggestions for this difficult journey:
- Acknowledge the reality and truth of what is happening to us.  This includes the reality of the disease and its threat, the emotional pain, and the difficulty of the struggle.

- Get in touch with our feelings: fear, grief, anger, depression, and shock.  Express them to God and others honestly.

- Engage our will.  Decide to make the most of our days and to make each one count.

- Set things in order: priorities, relationships, values.  We need to decide what is really important and do it.

- Deal with unfinished business with others, self, and with God.

- Face everything: our losses, our grief God, our limitations, our past, our pain.  It is in facing and naming these.

- Keep a journal.  Write down thoughts, feelings, beliefs, prayers, and experiences.  We could leave these for the family to read when they are ready.

- Pray.  Prayer is most powerful, maybe not to extend life but to help us truly live.  Ask God to show us our heart and his reality.

- Read the Book of Psalms.  It expresses many human struggles and emotions.  Much comfort and strength lie within it.