Theme: “My soul hungered”
Like many of you here I was inspired by the recent general
conference. We heard so many uplifting messages from great men and
women who I look up to. One of the highlights was hearing from Elder
Uchtdorf, who is one of the most inspiring speakers. He mentioned that he
gets complaints when his talks don’t have anything to do with aviation. This
was his justification to give yet another great talk using aviation stories and
themes. Writers are often given the advice to “write what you know”.
Veronica makes fun of me for always talking about cancer, but I’m just
trying to follow Elder Uchtdor’s example.
I want to start by telling you about a patient of mine who I’ll call Mary.
Mary is a woman in her 70s who never had any major health issues her
whole life. About a year ago she saw her dentist because she was having
tooth pain and some of her top teeth were falling out. The dentist was
surprised to find it was a tumor growing in her maxillary sinus into the
mandible, pushing some of her top molars out. She underwent surgery,
then endured over 6 weeks of daily radiation treatments. Unfortunately,
despite all of this the cancer returned within a few months, and now it had
spread down into her neck. Her surgeon couldn’t do anything, so she was
referred to see me, the medical oncologist. The day I met her she came to
the clinic distraught, along with her husband and two daughters joining via
Zoom. The whole family was emotional and pleading for help facing this
horrible situation.
As a medical oncologist, I encounter situations like this on a regular
basis. I see people not only dealing with physical health problems, but also
the mental, emotional, and spiritual challenges that come along with
fighting cancer.
This year while reading the book of Enos, the 3rd and 4th verses
particularly stood out to me. “Behold, I went to hunt beasts in the forests;
and the words which I had often heard my father speak concerning eternal
life, and the joy of the saints, sunk deep into my heart. 4 And my soul
hungered...” I’ve heard this phrase before, but this time reading I thought
more about what Enos may have meant when he said his soul hungered. I
thought about encounters with cancer patients like I just described. When
facing something as devastating as cancer, people and whole families are
forced to consider their mortality. I believe physical challenges like cancer
can cause our souls to hunger. People naturally have the desire to keep
living and fight for their lives to continue. I’ve found that when people go
through this process, they are more willing to do what doctors recommend.
Our souls are facing similarly serious threats every day. We all face
different challenges. It may be personal weaknesses, addiction, broken
family relationships, guilt, depression, anxiety. Whatever the spiritual
challenge we are facing, our souls hunger for spiritual nourishment. The
Savior says in 3 Nephi 12:6 - “And blessed are all they who do hunger and
thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled with the Holy Ghost.” If we
focus our spiritual hunger to righteous desires, we can be blessed with the
fruits of the spirit, which are “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness,
goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance”.
Back to the story of my patient, Mary. I met with her and her family,
and we created a personalized treatment plan using state of the art tumor
genomic testing and immunotherapy treatment. In the chemotherapy era, I
would have told Mary and her family that there was no known cure, and the
best we could do was to try to prolong her life with harsh chemicals.
Immunotherapy treatments help to restore the natural power of the body’s
immune system to fight the cancer. The power to kill the cancer is already
within us, but we need the help of the medication to overcome the
obstacles put in place by the cancer. Shortly after beginning her treatments,
Mary’s tumors melted away. She no longer required pain medication. She
and her family could not believe it! The next time I saw her, I could see that
instead of fear and anxiety, she and her family were starting to have hope
that she still had a chance to live. Over the following months she got better
and better, and CT scans eventually showed that there was no trace of
cancer detectable. I just saw her a couple of weeks ago, and she is filled
with a new zest for life. She told me how grateful she was that she could
spend time with her grandchildren, and that sometimes she forgets that she
was ever a cancer patient. She thanks me every time I see her for this
miracle that has saved her. I tell her every time that I take no credit for what
has happened to her, and I am just thrilled to get to witness such a miracle.
I wish this was the outcome for all of my patients, but unfortunately we still
have a lot to learn in the fight against cancer and this miracle only happens
in the small majority.
Brothers and Sisters, in the battle for our souls, we all have access to
a saving miracle, the atonement of Jesus Christ. Just like in the fight
against cancer, we cannot face all of our spiritual challenges alone. We can
turn to our family, our friends, our fellow church members, or church
leaders.
Physical hunger is a powerful driving force. I feel blessed that I have
not experienced true hunger due to lack of access to food. The closest I’ve
felt to real hunger is fasting for two meals. While I’m fasting I often find my
mind drifting to think about what I’m going to eat for dinner that day, or I
might be tempted to steal a few goldfish crackers from Ian. We’re blessed
to live in a time of abundance, but it can be a struggle to know what food is
healthy for our bodies. There is a lot of food that can satisfy our hunger
without actually providing the nourishment we need. Similarly, there are
things that can calm our spiritual hunger temporarily but not provide the
true spiritual nourishment we need. In 2 Nephi chapter 9, the prophet Jacob
teaches us to “feast upon that which perisheth not, neither can be
corrupted, and let your soul delight in fatness”. We live in a time of endless
distractions. Entertainment, music, video games, social media, and many
other distractions may distract us from our spiritual hunger temporarily. If
we are not careful, all of our time can be spent on these distractions, and
we can feel like we don’t have time for the Lord in our lives. I again think
about people facing the threat of cancer like my patient Mary. When I first
met her, her soul hungered for relief so much that she was “all in” to fight
and overcome her challenge. What if our souls hungered and sought after
righteousness with this same “all in” mentality? What would we do
differently? How would we prioritize our time? What sorts of things would
we do to nourish ourselves spiritually?
I’m grateful for the opportunity to prepare this talk and think deeply on
this subject.