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Three Simple Ways to Support a Friend With Cancer During the Holidays

November 29, 2017 by Marissa 4 Comments

In December 2010, I laid in bed while elves decorated my house for Christmas.

That might sound like a dream come true, right? We all struggle to juggle our typical busy schedules plus the demands of the holiday season.

But the year I battled cancer, spending late-night hours wrapping gifts and baking cookies wasn’t an option. I couldn’t even care for my family, so there was no way I could prepare for the holidays on my own. Thankfully, my elves—my amazing friends—knew I needed help, and they showed up to support our family.

If you have a friend fighting cancer this Christmas, you may wonder how to support her, especially in the midst of your own busy schedule. I’ve got a few suggestions that will hopefully shed light on your friend’s needs and ways you can help.

1. Help your friend with holiday tasks.

Depending on her treatment schedule and energy level, your friend might need just a little help or an entire sleigh of elves to pull her through. Try offering to help in one of these ways and see if she takes you up on it!

Offer to decorate her house for Christmas.

Ask your friend if there are any decorations that they want to do as a family. Maybe they love to put the ornaments on the tree or hang the stockings, but you could put up everything else. Tell her you’ll be back after Christmas to put the decorations away, and then follow through when the time comes!

Offer to help with her Christmas shopping.

Let your friend know which stores you’re hitting this week and ask if she needs anything there. Or you could pick your friend up and take her with you. She can run as many errands as she feels up to and then sit in the car while you finish. This gives you the added benefit of having time with your friend while you shop!

Give her a hand with the gift-wrapping.

You could offer to pick up gifts to wrap at your house, or you could bring over your wrapping paper, a movie, and hot cocoa, and work together to get the job done. Either way, make sure you let her write the names on the tags. Her family will want to see her handwriting on Christmas morning, not yours.

2. Understand your friend’s mixed emotions

Having cancer during the holidays is a bummer. Your friend’s Christmas may be tainted by her treatment schedule, financial stress, difficult emotions, and the inability to travel or keep her typical family traditions.

When I had cancer, I was devastated each time my health issues kept me from being present with my family for holiday events. I was terrified that I might not have many more Christmas seasons with them and desperately wanted to make every moment special. For years after cancer, the fear of recurrence and my uncertain future complicated my emotions around the holidays. I’d pack up the Christmas decorations each January and beg God to let me be the one to open them the next year.

Depending on your friend’s situation and prognosis, she may not be dwelling on these thoughts and fears. But her emotions surrounding the holiday season might be different than they were before cancer. Here’s how you can help:

Ask open-ended questions.

Say something like, “How does Christmas feel for you this year?” or “Is your health situation changing the way you experience the holidays?”

Listen to her answer.

She may give you a chipper “I’m fine!” and move on, and that’s okay. Follow her lead—she may be feeling positive and enjoying the season, or you may not be the one she wants to open up to right now. But if she needs to process fear or sadness with you, listen compassionately and let her know you’re supporting her in this struggle.

3. Keep the meals coming.

If your friend is going through treatment or recovering from surgery, I hope there is a meal calendar for her family. But as people get busy and leave town for the holidays, there may be gaps in the schedule. Ask your friend what she needs during the holidays, and rally the elves to provide for them. Here are some ideas:

Stock her freezer.

Pick one or two meals this month that you could easily double. Package the extra food to go into your friend’s freezer. Recruit a few friends to do the same, and she’ll have a fully-stocked freezer to get her through the holidays.

Ask friends to chip in for restaurant gift cards.

This will lighten the burden on your friend during the weeks when people are traveling and unable to bring meals.

Here’s one important thing you need to know about helping your friend during the holidays:

You are absolutely not going to be able to do all these things for your friend.

I know you’re busy right now, too. You hardly know how you’re going to get food on your own table, let alone shop, wrap, decorate, and cook for others while providing meaningful emotional support.

Keep in mind that you can’t do everything, and just pick one or two ideas from this. Consider the closeness of your relationship, and pray about how you can serve her. After you’ve done your part, trust the Lord to provide for her other needs. He is always faithful to do so.

Photo by Caley Dimmock on Unsplash

When You Struggle to Give Thanks {No Matter What Monday}

November 20, 2017 by Marissa Leave a Comment

I laid next to my sleeping husband and wondered if the next morning, Thanksgiving Day, he’d wake to find that I’d died during the night. My fear may have been exaggerated, but it wasn’t completely unreasonable. I ran a fever of over 102, and the number of white blood cells available to fight infection in my body was dangerously close to the number of hairs on my head: zero.

From the world’s perspective, I didn’t have much to be thankful for. I was stricken with a rare cancer, facing months of grueling treatment, bald, sick, fatigued, and scared.

And yet, these verses challenged my thinking:

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (I Thessalonians 5:16-18).

Some days, I didn’t feel like rejoicing. Chemo made my mind too foggy to pray. I struggled to find reasons to give thanks.

With great relief, I noticed the scripture doesn’t say, “Give thanks for all circumstances.” God didn’t ask me to give thanks for cancer—in fact, I believe He hates cancer, along with all the effects of this fallen world. He asked me to give thanks in all circumstances, and then He graciously enabled me to do so.

Maybe this year, giving thanks is a challenge for you. I’ve been there, and I’m sorry for your pain. When our life is a mess, our future uncertain, or our hearts broken, how can we give thanks in those circumstances?

God doesn’t ask us to wear a fake smile and humor Him with a Pinterest-inspired thankfulness craft. He hears our cries for rescue, restoration, and relief from our suffering. Then the Lord gently lifts our tear-stained faces and shows us He is with us. He cares for us, He is at work, and He can be trusted in our trials. Our Heavenly Father lovingly reminds us that He is the reason we give thanks in all circumstances.

No matter what you face this week, the Lord gives you a reason to give thanks in all circumstances.

Photo by Dan Musat on Unsplash

The Words No One Said to My Son that Night (and Why I’m Grateful)

October 19, 2017 by Marissa 3 Comments

The lights dimmed as I gripped my program and shifted in my seat with anticipation. After driving my son to what felt like 101 rehearsals, I was ready to watch him perform in his school’s junior high musical.

The spotlights followed the young teenagers around the stage, songs filled the air, and my son made the audience roar with laughter. I felt the familiar joy all moms feel as we watch our children do well. I felt relief that he didn’t forget his lines or trip over his own rapidly-growing feet.

I also felt a weight of gratitude that I suspect didn’t cross the other moms’ minds that evening. I was thankful that my son had a great time performing, for friends and relatives who joined us in the audience, and for a school that gives my child these opportunities. But there was one thing I was grateful for above all of these.

I was grateful that no one would say to my son that night, “Your mom sure would’ve loved this. She’d be so proud of you.”

Seven years ago, as I read the dismal survival rates for angiosarcoma, as I traveled to MD Anderson Cancer Center to receive months of treatment and participate in a clinical trial, as I walked through the early months and years of survivorship . . . I thought ahead to these moments. I saw my children, a few inches taller and a few years more mature, playing in piano competitions, dancing in ballet recitals, competing in spelling bees, and walking to the stage during school awards assemblies.

No matter how much I squinted and searched, I couldn’t see whether or not I was sitting in the crowd. I feared those normally-happy occasions would be marred by my absence. I imagined the sad half-smiles and the words others would say to console my children: “Your mom would be so proud.”

And by God’s grace, here I am. Not a week goes by that I don’t marvel at my presence here in 2017. I know other children are missing their moms, and it breaks my heart. I don’t take my present or future health for granted.

But as the house lights came up and I made my way to the lobby after the show, it was a joy to hug my son and say, “Wow, I really loved that! I sure am proud of you.”

Video ~ Three Things NOT to Say to Your Friend with Cancer

September 18, 2017 by Marissa Leave a Comment

Do you hesitate to reach out to a friend with cancer because you’re scared you’ll say the wrong thing? Here are three things not to say, based on my experience as a cancer survivor and friend of cancer-fighters, and served up with a big dose of grace. This was recorded as a Facebook Live video in September 2017.

For more information on this topic, check out my book, Loving Your Friend through Cancer.

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