Messages From
An Illness
MESSAGES FROM AN ILLNESS: DEEPENING FAITH THROUGH CANCER
While searching for meaning and purpose in her cancer, Ruth Skaggs found a deeper faith in God’s plan.
Ruth Skaggs’ diagnosis of cancer brought an immediate recognition in her that there were meanings and purpose to be found in her illness. She committed herself to learning the teachings that were waiting to be revealed. Using her daily routine of reading the Scriptures followed by contemplative prayer, she began to receive messages from God. Skaggs explains how the profound insights from the messages helped her to move through the journey to recovery.
Skaggs shares how she used her knowledge and experience as a licensed professional counselor, music psychotherapist, and expressive arts therapist to complement her medical treatments. She provides suggestions that will help others who want to incorporate music and expressive arts in their own healing.
Of the many books published on cancer this book stands alone in its inclusion of prayer, personal guidance through the Scriptures, descriptions of the complementary therapies of music, imagery, and expressive writing, and suggestions for using them. Anecdotes are spread throughout the story, written in a readable style.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
For more
than twenty years Ruth Skaggs had a private practice in
Skaggs has two sons and two grandsons.
TABLE OF CONTENTS:
INTRODUCTION
1 A LIFE-CHANGING JOLT
2 UNCHARTED TERRITORY
3 GOD SPEAKS TO US IN MANY WAYS
Familiar Ways, New Experience
Lectio Divina
4 IN THE CRUCIBLE
Dealing with the Stigma
At the Hand of the Pruner
A New Spirit
5 INTEGRATIVE MEDICINE
Music
Imagery
Music-Evoked Imagery
Expressive Writing
The Healing Benefits of Nature
6 RELIGION, SPIRITUALITY, AND PRAYER
7 CANCER DOESN’T HAPPEN TO JUST ONE
EPILOGUE
APPENDIX A: Choosing Your Medical Team
APPENDIX B: Breathing Exercises 1 and 2
APPENDIX C: Resources
APPENDIX D: List of Music
PUBLISHER: WestBow Press
Hardback $28.95 ISBN: 978-1-4497-9167-4
Soft cover $11.95 ISBN: 978-1-4497-9166-7
eBook $3.95 ISBN: 978-1-4497-9165-0
Available at most booksellers and
from the publisher Westbow Press: http://bookstore.westbowpress.com
ENDORSEMENTS:
I have endorsed many manuscripts, but this is one of the few for which words of commendation come to mind immediately and without reservation. Ruth Skaggs has written a primer for dealing with the spiritual challenges of cancer (or any life-threatening illness) that offers clear, concise, practical, realistic, and spiritually nuanced guidance. It avoids pious clichés. Skaggs gives enough information about her diagnoses to provide context but focuses on prayer, community, and methods of meditation that brought healing to her. This book is personal, yet widely applicable to others. Some of its insights are not found elsewhere. Should I ever have cancer, this is the book I will reach for.
─The Rev. Dr. Richard H. Schmidt, Director of Forward Movement Publications and Editor of Forward Day by Day (retired)
In her Messages from an Illness, Ruth Skaggs’ first words got my attention, and I immediately remembered when I heard my own diagnosis sixteen years ago. She and the Spirit moving her led me gently but insistently into the whirlwind of awareness of the all-encompassing reality of the disease.
She leads us into the treatment which must be done, with its misery and hope, and to the very special people our doctors and caregivers become for us. She reminds us of the blessing of family and friends and the importance of faith─even in confusion and protest. She tells her story of her journey with this disease, and in telling, she becomes good company for us when such a journey is ours to make or when it beckons someone we love. She tells and walks with us as one whose hands hold the rod and staff, even in the valley of the shadow.
─The Rev. S. Albert Kennington, XV Rector, retired, Trinity Episcopal Church, Mobile, Alabama; contributor to Forward Movement publications, The Living Church and Anglican Digest.
Although I am an editor, I read Ruth Skaggs’ new book as a friend. Not only was I moved by this beautifully written story, I was also struck by how different it is from other “medical memoirs” I’ve worked on as a book editor.
In Messages from an Illness, Ruth took me, as a reader, along on her journey—from diagnosis to remission. As her travel companion I learned powerful lessons about living, rather than dying. I witnessed her unshakable faith in God, her strong support system of family and friends, but—most important—her attitude during this experience. Her attitude of being a seeker, trusting that a loving God is always with her, may well explain why she is now in remission and savoring life.
Rather than saying “Poor me,” or “Why me?” she instead turned this trying experience into a search for meaning, a chance to grow emotionally and spiritually, and to forge an even stronger connection to God than she’d had prior to her diagnosis.
In addition to reading an inspiring story of courage, people who want step-by-step advice will get that from this book as well; Ruth explains various tools she took along on this journey—healing tools like daily meditation and prayer, listening to therapeutic music, connecting with nature, and journaling. I strongly believe that her approach will be helpful to people dealing with many kinds of difficult challenges, not just life-threatening illness.
###
Susan Snowden’s poetry
and short stories have appeared in numerous literary journals and anthologies.
Her novel, Southern Fried Lies, was
published in 2012 by Archer Hill (