When Cancer Comes to Your Life

Posted on November 3, 2025 by Scott Shaum

Is there a word that strikes as much fear in our hearts as the “C” word?

Cancer is such a scary reality. Cancer is so prevalent. Every one reading this knows someone who has, or has had or has had themselves this wretched disease. Every year 2 million Americans are diagnosed with some form of cancer. Multiply that across the globe.

As a pastor I have presided over too many funerals of those whose life has been cut short by cancer. 20 years old. 40 year olds. 50 year olds. It is a curse that will not follow us into eternity. But today, it is a reality.

True, cancer research and treatment has come so far in recent years. Yet, it remains a nemesis that none of us want to mess with. Then there is the fear element that messes with us. The enemy loves to use cancer to strike deep fear into our hearts.

Even if we are “cured,” it costs us deeply. 

Sometimes it costs us in organs or limbs or breasts. Days and weeks in a chair as chemo is pumped into the body. Loss abounds. Hair. Appetite. Strength. Dignity. Any sense of control. A life we once knew as normal.

How many have you lost to this dread? I have lost grandparents. I have lost Uncles and Aunts. I have lost friends. You? You can name them, with tears in your eyes, as I have in mine as I type this. 

Where is our Lord in this situation? He knows. He sees. But is he impotent in the face of such an onslaught of destruction? He is not. 

So I have a wonder. 

What if He is so powerful, more so, so loving, that he is up to something far more spectacular than we can imagine? Nothing is outside his redemptive creativity. Nothing. Not cancer. Not death itself. 

What if, like any hardship we face – chronic depression, divorce, abuse, neglect, car accident, anything – he is up to something so wondrous it would be easy to miss it in the fog of pain and confusion. 

Consider Jesus. 

Jesus’ body was torn, shattered, carved up. Yet, he knew the Father was always with him. Yes, in the pit of the darkness he cried out “why” he was not delivered from such an agony. But the Trinity was not torn asunder. The three-in-one was never not a reality. Not for a moment. In their oneness one of them died a human’s death. An awful death. But as is true for us, so too for Jesus: nothing can separate us from the love of the Father, not even death (See Romans 8).

In Jesus’ suffering life was afforded us. Love was lived out to its full. I have life because Jesus laid his down. In the midst of the most awful event in human history, we are saved. 

What if in the midst of the hardest events of our personal lives, God works beauty, wonder, healing, strength, wholeness and full redemption? 

As our bodies are ravaged by such a horrid disease, we are never, no not ever, separated from the God who envelops us in his life and love and care and compassion. In fact, the Spirit is all the more upon the suffering one. In our suffering we join the One who has suffered, who was torn asunder. 

Do you see it? We join him in his sufferings. And as such, we are immersed all the more in his love.

Cancer is not the sole domain of Satan to torment us.  Nor is any other hardship. Jesus is our Shepherd. He abides us through every shadowy valley.  He is in the midst of any hardship with us. He is pouring out his love and compassion upon us. And he is shaping the human soul in ways that are nigh a mystery. Only he can take the horrid of cancer and make a beautiful soul amidst it all. There is opportunity here. Opportunity to be taken deeper into Christ and the Father’s love and the Spirit’s grace. Ask him to show you. He will.

———-

My wife was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. We are now in the Way to wherever he will take us. We have never been here before. God have mercy. I trust him. His love is so tender and kind.

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Sabbatical Engagements

Posted on July 13, 2025 by Scott Shaum

A sabbatical is an opportunity to disengage from certain normative activities to make space to engage different “sabbatically” activities.

What have I been engaging in?

Rest: My first sabbatical goal was to sleep in my own bed for 30 nights straight. I travel so much, all year long, that this was indeed a serious goal. I made it to 45 before we had to travel for family reasons.

I knew that the first thing that would have to happen is for my adrenal system to slow down. The first four months of 2025 were intense enough and I was tired enough, plus carrying some heavy grief, that my adrenal system was way over-engaged. It took about three weeks for that to stabilize.

It took a solid 5 weeks for me to get out of rest-debt and back to zero. Since then, rest just keeps adding on.

Rest cannot be forced or managed. It is received and experienced.

I have ponderings about rest theologically too. I teach that rest is not only an experience but also that rest is a Person. Jesus is our rest. He beckons us to come to him to find rest for our souls. Maybe I’ll write more on this when I have something to offer. For now, I am just noticing.

Stabilitas (stability – being in the same place on purposes): Being home has been so good. Watching Spring flow into Summer in the Rockies has been a delight. Also being at our home church for weeks in a row. All this adds to the settling down and settling in.

Input Efforts: Normal minsitry and leadership is constant output. Output has been set aside – all of it. This is input season.

We have been debreifed. I meet monthly with a spiritual director. I have met with an older mentor friend. We have a sabbatical group who are listening, watching and speaking to us. I am grateful for those investing in me/us.

BOOKS! Oh, so many books read, for fun and for growth. I may need to send out a mid-year reads list because its getting long.

I was finishing up the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises the first month of Sabbatical. I then began receiving training to facilitate them. So there is much learning happening.

Deep Spiritual Renewal: Most essential of all, long times of prayer. The mornings are long and slow. I need a deep infilling of Father, Son and Spirit. “Jesus, take me deeper…..”

But note, prayer is relational engagement and I was so tired at the start of sabbatical that I mostly just went for walks with Jesus in a field or woods. I was too tired to sit in a chair and engage God in a focused manner. Now that rest is building in me, I can pray again. Sitting long in the mornings has added a deepening that is much needed.

Projects: As I travel, projects around home pile up. So good to plug away at these. I like putzing.

Family and Community: We have had great time with our kids and grandkids. Plus many times of seeing friends in the area.

Health: Needed doctors appointments, dentist (yuck), and simply trying to get a better routine of exercise. Gosh, I feel better already…..

Creativity: There are vital parts of me that get squished out of life during a full ministry routine. Now that rest is having its way in me, creativity is coming back. I am enjoying cooking again. This is a significant creative outlet for me. Also, writing is starting to stir in me…

When we are rested, good things begin to flow out of us.

Hope you are inspired even if you are not in a non-sabbatical season to go through your schedule with a machete and cut out some space for self-care and input!

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Sabbatical: What am I noticing Regarding Disengagement

Posted on July 1, 2025 by Scott Shaum

When we deliberately opt to disengage for a day (sabbath) or a season (sabbatical), what might be the impact on us? Why would one even want to do that?

My wife and I have been granted a sabbatical for the middle part of this year. It came at a perfect time. The first four months of this year were very demanding. Much good work was done. And there was some deep personal grief at play. All this took its toll.

When May 1 arrived, day one of sabbatical, I felt spent and poured out. I was done. Toast. Deeply tired. 

It was not that I had overextended. Contrary. I am confident that what we have been about the past 5 plus years, as well as the first 4 months of this year, was his guidance. We gave until we were spent. It was a good tired, deep though it was. It was going to take some weeks to “get back to zero.”

And it did take many weeks for rest to begin to take shape within me. 

As Rest did shape in me, I began to notice some shifts within amidst these initial weeks of disengagement. 

First, I was not missing much of what I had normally been doing. Travel, meetings, public speaking, leadership decisions, spiritual direction, and so on were all set aside. The break was very good. It is good and wise to hit pause, to set normal roles aside for a time. 

Second, much of what I had struggled to let go of suddenly had a different sense of importance to it. Why was it so hard for me to let those things go? Prior to sabbatical I was feeling very ambivalent about the whole thing. I was leery of setting roles and responsibilities aside. Now, much of it didn’t seem quite so important.

Why is that?

Well, I suspect that as I get more and more engaged in efforts, it is still too easy for my sense of identity to slowly drift. I drift from being firmly grounded in my Father and his opinion of me to a false sense of who I am. All of us struggle with this. Most of us are unaware of just how deep this false sense of identity shapes us. I found that as I sat all those roles aside, I became aware of false attachments to them. Weeks into this sabbatical, they don’t hold the same sense of import to me. 

This is also good and healthy. It is one reason we are to practice a weekly sabbath – to once again find our delight in God, not what we do. 

But after years of life and work, drift happens.  We need more than a weekly sabbath to experience such substantial re-orientation and renewal. Sabbatical is a God-given gift to aid us in re-orientation. Sabbatical is an extended sabbath of sorts. It’s more than that for sure, but it is an extended sabbath as well. 

Rest is beginning to take shape in me again. I want to know the full force and impact of deep rest in the Person of Jesus, who is our rest. I want to feel the equilibrium that the Father’s love provides. 

Also, I want to begin to discern what it is most true and appropriate for me to be working at once I do engage work again. We make our best discerning decisions when we are well oriented in Father, Son and Spirit and from a place of rest, not frenetic, compulsive habit.

It requires a sabbatical for any of us to experience such a shift. I am grateful for that gift in this season.  I am grateful for my organizational leadership for such a gift.

Next time, I’ll reflect on what has been engaged amidst this disengagement from normal work. Until then, may you know Christ as your Rest today.

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The Weight of Grief, the Gift of Grief 

Posted on March 3, 2025 by Scott Shaum

I had watched my wife grieve the sudden passing of her mom over twenty years ago. I saw that grief come over her like an eclipse of her normal shining self. She was veiled in grief for many, many months.

But I had not known that same grief. Until the past weeks.

My dad had been showing the signs of a body slowly fading. Parts were giving out. But he was holding steady. Ornery as ever.

The stroke, though, was sudden, unexpected and severe. It claimed his right side, his speech, his ability to swallow. He was not going to recover from this. After two days of tests, it was decided by the family to move him into hospice. Over the next 10 days he held firm, until the final day.

God got me to his side in time. I was honored to be in that sacred space and time of his passing from this life. I watched over him as he breathed his last. What is it to take one’s last breath? How is that experienced? I witnessed it but I still don’t know.

He had been with me when I breathed my first breaths. I was able to be with him when he breathed his final breath.

The grief had already been present. At that moment though, it gained an entirely different weight. I am stunned by the finality, the totality of passing from this life to the next. There are no more conversations. No do overs. No opportunity for further clarification. Done. The race run. The pilgrimage ended.

The waves of tears take me like a tsunami. I can’t hold them back. Without warning. The slightest reminder. A memory. A story oh-so-familiar. Tears. Waves of a deep ache rising. Our culture in the West has little space and lesser comfort with this gift of grief. Yet, it is a gift to grieve.

God has designed us to do so in the presence of such loss. Grief feels like something is breaking when in fact it is a means of healing. To not grieve is to truly break. Oh, yes, it is exhausting like wading against a current too strong. Relentless. I am learning to give way to it.

Every change is loss and every loss is to be grieved.

Of course some loss is weightier than other losses. Yet each loss is to be honored. Named. Described. Stories need to be told.

Some of the unhealthiest people I’ve met have stuffed their grief. That grief is still holding enormous sway.

Some of the most courageous people I know have grieved well. They carry a grief with them in their beautiful, well-lived life. There is a truth, a beauty, and a weightiness about these ones who grieve well.

If there is a right way to walk this path called grief, I don’t know it. It’s like asking if there is a right way to blink. (I am aware there are healthy processes to grief, but when one is raw with grief, it feels like a fog bank).

May you be in-couraged to walk your own path of grief.

May you have someone wise to companion you with few words and a steady presence.

And above all else, may you know the love of a Father who knows grief and envelopes you in his love along the way of grief.

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Heading Into the Wilderness

Posted on February 14, 2025 by Scott Shaum

Everyone I engage is experiencing some level of challenge in life. Some of these challenges are life altering. What is up with all these trials?

I have been teaching on adult development and the stages of faith with greater frequency. Regardless of what source you grab on these topics, they all have a similar life experience that is described in various ways: 

  • the wall
  • the dark night
  • wilderness experiences
  • seasons of disorientation
  • boundary times involving loss, grief, and tremendous upheaval.

These all refer to those tough seasons of life. They can last days, months, years, or even entires swaths of our lives. 

We also know from Scripture, biographies, and our own lives that these seasons of disorientation are essential for both our own formation and for ministry fulfillment. God often took his followers, even his own Son, deep into the wilderness for deeply redemptive purposes. The Gospels and Acts are replete with adversity as the gospel is proclaimed and lived out.

This is the way God has created the redemptive process. We may not like it, but our loving and wise Father has designed it so.  Plainly, without adversity, we simply do not grow to full maturity. Further, there is an aspect of following in the Jesus’ and the Apostle’s ministry that requires suffering for ministry fulfillment. 

I want to say that all again: First, We require these adversities to mature and, second, fulfillment of our God-given purposes in life will also require suffering as we go about that in whatever vocational expression we have.

I want to invite us to some deeper pondering on this topic. Here are some questions for you to consider:

First, let’s consider this for our own formation:

 If wilderness is a keen place of God’s redemptive work, would it not be wise to create our own seasons of wilderness? This is akin to following Jesus into desolate places for periods of time. 

How would you imagine doing that?

Why is this essential? I have been reading from a commentary on the Gospels and the author makes the observation that public ministry fosters our false identity. In public there is much performance and people are watching. We can craft a public self. 

In Solitude that is all removed. Thus, the necessity of solitude to allow the Father to speak to us and foster our true identity. Identity is received from God, not self-crafted. We all need to hear the Father’s words to us of his naming us, calling us, and pouring his love out upon us. This is our true identity and allows us to move back into the public arena to truly give our life away to others. Without this orientation, we look to others for that which must come from the Father alone. 

Spend some time reflecting on this dynamic for yourself.

One more personal formation consideration for those seasons when we are not in control. Life happens to us. Things get hard, dark, confusing. 

How can self-induced wilderness times prepare us for life-induced wilderness?

How might we prepare our hearts to remain open toward God – aware and responsive to his presence and redemptive activity –  in these hard times? 

When will you intentionally follow Jesus into solitude? How will you craft your own wilderness?

Second, for vocational fulfillment:

One of the greatest gifts were have is to companion others in their hard times. Our own personal hard times equips us for that gift to others.

How can I walk with others in their wilderness if I have not become familiar with the wilderness myself? How is God shaping you to companion others through these seasons of wilderness?

Further, simply going about the act of loving our neighbor requires sacrifice -from everyday inconvenience to true personal sacrifice. How is God beckoning me on this path/

These are some weighty matters. May you have the grace to find the space and place to weigh in on them with Father, Son and Spirit.

Please, do share your thoughts. Thanks much.

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The Fog Bank Called Fear

Posted on January 22, 2025 by Scott Shaum

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 1 John 4:18

The Fear Factor

A consistent indicator that my inner compass is misaligned is fear.

In recent years I came to be aware of a free-floating fear within me. It often was off my cognitive radar, unnamed, lurking like an iceberg in the fog.

One day it was finances – “How are we going to make it through these expenses?”

The next health – “What is that pain in my head?”

The next day a relationship. Or a task ahead. Or…..geesh. That free floating fear is like a burr, just looking to attach itself to anything that comes along.

It was quite the revelation when I named this dynamic within me. Actually, the Spirit was the one who put this on my awareness radar. This is one of the graces of the Spirit. The Spirit actually brings these deep wounds to the surface of our awareness so they can be healed. We cooperate with him in this. This fear was tripping me up. The Spirit pointed it out to me.

How shall I respond? The Spirit was inviting me toward another season of growth in trust.

Perfected in Love

It is instructive that the Apostle John (in 1 John 4) juxtaposes fear with love. Love dispels fear. Simple enough. How does that work though?

Love is never passive, it is effectual. By that I mean it shapes us. Love changes us. As does an absence of being loved – that also shapes us.

Love is not merely an emotion. It is a Person. Love is not just a what, it is also a Who. Father, Son and Spirit are love.

Love has taken up residence within us. The Spirit of the Father is love, and so much more. He is seeking to transform us, heal us, shape us, mature us. Love is his way with us.

As I grow in love, those other malforming dynamics begin to lose their sway. What has a larger sway on me today – love or fear or shame or anxiety or….?

It would be too simplicistic to over-spiritualize this. Being transformed from chronic anxiety to resting in love does not happen with mere Scripture memorization – as helpful and essential as that is. Our stories run deep within the canyons of our souls. It takes decades and many helps to heal from these wounds.

But we have an ally. His name is Love.

Ways to Proceed

My fear was formed in me at the hands of others during formative years.

And I also agreed to those dynamics as I aged. I am not a victim, I am complicit.

We have some hard inner work to do. We are not on our own in this. The Spirit is within us and always helping us. Together it is the hard work of maturing.

We have to name things; confess them; repent of them; be willing to learn new ways of responding to others and life circumstances. It can be a long turbulent path, This is the way of growing in love. I’d like for the up and down dynamic to be normalized for us all.

How did it look for me?

The free-floating fear within me had to be named. Actually it had step-siblings to be named too.

There was: “I am on my own.” That had to be named for sure. This is a lie.

Then the ugly brother: “Its all up to me.” Named. Another lie to be confessed (confession is simply acknowledging what is).

As these are named and confessed to Jesus, he cleanses, he disarms the lies, and he heals that which is broken. Not in a mere therapeutic way so I can feel better about myself. This is a deepening of our true identity in the Father’s love.

These loving acts redirected my orientation to our loving Father. One of my purposes in life is to receive and live in the Father’s love. It is confounding how much I long for that, and fight against it too.

As John teaches us in 1 John 4, we cannot change ourselves. God transforms us as we yield to him and follow him. He is deepening our roots around his love.

May you be en-couraged to follow closely and receive his healing.

Helpful resources:

Summer Joy Gross Emmanuel Promise (and see her website)

Father Ian Matthews The Impact of God

Skye Jethani With

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2024 Annual Reads List

Posted on January 14, 2025 by Scott Shaum

Hi All

Attached is my annual reads list. I hope your find something in here of value to you.

Please pass along any suggestions you have from any genre. Thanks!

Grace and Peace

Scott

Scott Shaum Reads List 2024Download
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Maturing in the Father’s Love

Posted on June 21, 2024 by Scott Shaum

I developed the below reflection to help stir reflection on the expansiveness of the Father’s love and our maturing in that love. There is much commentary I could give on this passage, but it is best that we hear from the Spirit via the Word.

The passage is 1 John 4:7-19.

I’d encourage settling into a quiet spot. Slowing yourself. Asking the Spirit to soften your heart to receive the Word. Read the passage, several times as needed. There are some short reflection questions at the end.

1 John 4:7-19 The Apostle John’s Quintessential Statement on Love

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from the Father, and whoever loves has been born of the Father and knows the Father. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know the Father, because the Father is love. 9 In this the love of the Father was made manifest among us, that the Father sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved the Father but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if the Father so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen the Father; if we love one another, the Father abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

13 By this we know that we abide in the Father and he in us, because the Father has given us of his Spirit. 14 And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. 15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of the Father, the Father abides in him, and he in the Father. 16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that the Father has for us. The Father is love, and whoever abides in love abides in The Father, and the Father abides in him. 17 By this (i.e. abiding in the Father) is love perfected in us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. 19 We love because the Father first loved us.

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  • What is revealed to you in this passage about the Father? What surprises you?
  • What  from this passage can you be grateful for? Express that to God.
  • What convicts you? What is there you want to confess to God? Take time to confess that. Receive His forgiveness promised to us in Jesus (1 John 1:8-9, 2:1-2; Romans 5:1)
  • What else is the Spirit teaching you from this passage?

  • Fear is such a prevalent reality for all of us. Fear is a healthy, God-given emotion that can protect us. Fear, in the context of a safe, healthy relationship can also hinder us. If our fear is a fear that the Father rejects us, does not want to be with us or is somehow put off by us, then it is a hindering fear. This sort of fear is a true hinderance to receiving the Father’s love. Where there is love, fear is minimized, diminished, scattered. What areas of your life is fear present and how is the Father’s love specifically addressing that area? Consider this in terms of God’s initiative, presence and activity – not you trying harder or simply suppressing or pushing the fear away. Allow Him to be present with your fear in His love and offer His kind care to you in that reality.

I’d love to hear what the Lord stirs in you.

Were you aware that the Father abides in you, just as Christ does? That he indwells you, just as the Spirit does? Our God is One God. Where one person of the Trinity is at work, the others are equally present.

Be encouraged in the Father’s love today.

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