A well-meaning acquaintance and fellow cancer patient told me I’d be inundated with people advising me to keep a positive attitude. He said it was silly to have “false hope” and that cancer killed people with positive attitudes as well as those with bad. That may be true, but the comment was like poison to me–even more poisonous than the chemotherapy they pumped into my veins. I knew that to live without hope was no life I’d care to live. I didn’t know what God had planned for me, but I could hope to linger on the earth, and I could have faith that the right thing would happen.

At first it seemed like a contradiction. I hoped for life, but I almost felt guilty about it. I knew I needed to be submissive to God’s will, and I didn’t know what that was. I worried it was inappropriate to hope to live, because maybe that wasn’t what God wanted. But when I view hope and faith as two sisters, one leading me and one walking beside me, I feel peace and comfort.