"Blessings arrive in unexpected packages -- in my case, cancer," writes White House Press Secretary Tony Snow in the July issue of Christianity Today.

Snow, who discovered in March that his colon cancer had recurred and spread to his liver, said his life-threatening setback is also life-affirming. It has strengthened his faith and brought clarity to his life.

"We don't know how the narrative of our lives will end, but we get to choose how to use the interval between now and the moment we meet our Creator," says the 51-year-old.

A new study at Arizona State University led by Jessica Tartaro seeks to understand the impact of spirituality on healing by studying men and women who have completed any type of cancer treatment within the past year. Tartaro is also interested in learning about other spiritual sources of strength beyond traditional ones.

Many people believe that factors other than traditional treatments can affect healing including exercise, stress reduction and nutrition. However, an individual's spirituality and it's connection with healing is less well-understood.

According to Tartaro in an interview with the The Arizona Republic, research shows people of faith tend to have an "edge in healing and half of all patients feel illness strengthens their faith."

It's funny the random things you remember from your past. I was thinking the other day of a guy I went to high school with, who told us one day that, seeing as his uncle and grandpa both died of cancer, there was no doubt in his mind that he would too. 'He's fishing for sympathy', I scribbled furiously to a friend, 'What a whiner'. I'm not nearly as judgmental in adulthood, but some things don't change: I still don't like that kind of negative thinking. Yeah, my dad, grandparents and aunts died of cancer, but so what? I'm not them.

What reminded me of that story was this one, about Shirley McQueen, who's seen 14 relatives -- including all of the women in her family -- die of breast cancer. She says she feels like she's 'standing in the middle of the M25 waiting for a lorry to hit her', and with those odds, I don't blame her. But I truly believe in the power of positive thinking, and if I were in a similar situation, I hope with every fiber of my being that I can muster up enough faith to steadfastly ascertain that cancer will not, under any circumstances, be the end of me, like I've seen so many brave survivors do. I think without that sort of hope, we're just a bunch of lost souls, floundering, preparing for death and not looking towards the future.

How have you found hope in your battle with cancer?

Former televangelist Tammy Faye Messner -- formerly Tammy Faye Bakker -- posted Tuesday on her website (service is currently unavailable) a message about her health.

Messner, 65, reports that doctors have stopped treating her cancer -- she was diagnosed with colon cancer in 1996 and announced in 2004 the disease had spread to her lungs.

"I am down weight-wise to 65 pounds, and look like a scarecrow," the Charlotte resident shared on her site. "I need God's miracle to swallow. I look at young people and wish with all my heart for just one day of 'feeling great.'"

Tom Keilty of San Dimas, California lost his wife Ruth to breast cancer in 2005, 12 years after she was first diagnosed with the disease. From the very first day cancer entered their lives until the very last day of Ruth's life, the Keilty family received hundreds of hand-written notes for Ruth, filled with encouragement and support.

The notes are still arriving, this time for Keilty and his three children. The notes help strengthen this family's faith and help them grieve. The Keiltys are grateful for the trail of mail that has come their way -- and they ask others to consider writing their own their own notes of hope.

It's simple.

Just drop by a local retailer and pick up a special edition PaperMate Pink Ribbon Pen and Pink Pearl City of Hope Eraser. For each item sold through December 31, 2008, PaperMate will make a donation -- up to $200,000 -- to City of Hope for breast cancer research, education, and treatment.

Then sit down and Write for Hope in honor of someone battling breast cancer. Not only will you warm someone's heart, you will also earn the chance to win a $500 donation made in your honor to City of Hope Cancer Center.

Click here to enter.

I just finished reading the words of Mark Raymond Clements -- and the words of his wife, Marianne, written when Mark was too ill to comment. I am overcome and overwhelmed with emotion because each string of sentences filling the pages of the Clements family homepage has touched me, inspired me, and saddened me all at the same time.

Clements was diagnosed in October 2005 with cholangiocarcinoma, a rare cancer of the bile duct normally found in people in their 70s.

"There is no known cure," writes Clements. "It does not respond well to chemotherapy. It is fast moving."

And fast moving it was. Surgery -- rarely a good option for this cancer -- was attempted but without success.

"After they opened him up, they discovered that the cancer had just spread too far," Marianne writes. "They closed him back up."

Chemotherapy came next and while there were some hopeful moments -- "overall distribution of the disease has decreased" -- the overwhelming course of Clement's disease continued on a fast track. And by June 2006, Clements realized, "the cruel reality of CANCER hits like a brick wall," when a CT scan revealed the presence of as many as 20 new tumors in his liver.

The Clements family never abandoned hope and were steadfast in their faith as cancer continued to dominate their lives. In October -- one year after diagnosis -- when Marianne believed doctors were sending a let's make you as comfortable as we can message, the family began pursuing alternative methods. But by December, when it had become clear treatment of any kind would no longer help, Mark Clements was welcomed by the loving arms of hospice -- where he remained until he passed away on January, 19, 2007. He was 40 years old.

On the very day of her husband's death, Marianne writes, "I know I am not alone in feeling complete anguish at this time. I know it will lessen over time. I know I will not understand 'why' until I'm with him again, but what I do know is that Mark loved me. He loved his children. He loved his family and friends. He will be waiting for me with our loving Father in Heaven. And we will be together again. Our Father in Heaven is aware of our pain and will comfort us still as he has through this past year."

And these are just some of the words that have has touched me, inspired me, and saddened me all at the same time.

It is a they said, she said lawsuit of family against family as the children of Darrell Wayne Perry, a Nashville songwriter with credits that include Tim McGraw's Not a Moment Too Soon; Lorrie Morgan's What Part of No; Toby Keith's A Woman's Touch, I Only Miss You, and Every Promise I Ever Made; accuse their evangelical preaching aunt Darlene Bishop, and sister to the deceased, of causing the death of Perry by promising to cure him with prayer after his throat cancer diagnosis in 2003.

Perry's children say Bishop claimed she was cured of cancer through prayer and promised to cure her brother in the same way. According to news reporting, in her book Your Life Follows Your Words, Bishop wrote that faith and prayer cured her of her cancer and her brother Perry of his cancer. In a deposition, she is said to have admitted she was never diagnosed with cancer by a physician, even though she believed she had the disease.

After Perry's death from cancer, Bishop became the executor to his estate. According to the children, Bishop has not given them any of their inheritance, estimated at $750,000 dollars. The children are suing their aunt for wrongful death, clergy malpractice and fraud. Bishop denies all allegations.

The level of grief and the depth of sadness felt when losing a family member to cancer is without measure. You would think that nothing worse could possibly happen. This turn of events following the cancer diagnosis and death of Perry, however it turns out, and wherever the truth is to be found, has reached a new depth in an abyss of empty darkness.

Evangelical preacher Darlene Bishop believes prayer can cure cancer. She wrote a book about it, and she convinced her brother to abandon conventional cancer treatment so he could fully pursue the power of prayer. Sadly, his pursuits were unsuccessful and he died 18 months ago from throat cancer. Now Bishop is in the midst of a multi-faceted legal battle with family members who claim she did her brother wrong. Maybe she did.

Perhaps prayer alone can't cure cancer, but a new study does indicate prayer can be of great benefit to some people following a cancer diagnosis.

Researchers at the University of Wisconsin looked at transcripts from 97 breast cancer patients active in an on-line support group. They found patients who wrote more religious words -- like prayer, worship, faith, and holy -- had less negative emotions than other patients. They also had higher levels of overall well-being.

This study, also revealing prayer has the same effect regardless of specific religious practices, lends support to research showing cancer patients with positive purpose in their lives fare better through their journeys than those floundering in negativity.

Breast cancer survivor and journalist Laura Jensen Walker is author of Reconstructing Natalie, a story of about a young Christian woman diagnosed with breast cancer.

Walker uses humor to tell the tale of Natalie Moore getting dumped by her boyfriend when he finds out she has breast cancer; being shunned by friends; leaving her church; and attending the Boob Voyage party thrown before her double mastectomy.

There is new romance to be found as Natalie undergoes reconstruction and reconstructs her life. Walker believes strongly that women diagnosed with breast cancer need to laugh -- that humor is healing.

Reconstructing Natalie has been selected as the Women of Faith Novel of the Year. Walker is also the author of the autobiographical book Thanks for the Mammogram!

The Beck family blogs about life in California -- about soccer games and parades and hikes and family trips. They display happy photos of their kids eating pancakes made by daddy and playing on the beach and dressing up for Halloween. And they also blog about breast cancer -- because Valerie Beck, wife and mom of two young children, was diagnosed with this disease on June 26, 2006.

Valerie is just two months into her journey and has just completed her second chemotherapy treatment. She has already survived surgery and scary pathology results and some dark moments. But Valerie will surely conquer cancer with her happy take on life, her supportive family, and her ability to go with the flow -- however unpredictable it may be. And her husband -- author of the family blog -- keeps all readers updated on Valerie's progress. He is positive, hopeful, and a bit frightened too. On July 8, he wrote:

What a past couple days, my beautiful bride Valerie, my wife, my life long partner has a serious fight in front of her. She is going to grow old with me, she is going to help me spoil our grandchildren, we will beat this! I have faith, and I believe, but I also believe you cannot hide from the awful truths, this is not a nice disease. Three of the best doctors in the world do not come rushing to your aid in ONE DAY if they thought "you will easily make it through this" (which is what it seems I am always telling Valerie). I am trying to be strong, I feel I have to be, but sitting here in front of an inanimate object I find it easier to share my inner fears. I do have faith we will make it through this ..... it just won't be easy.

It won't be easy. But it can be done. Best wishes, Beck family!

Lynne began her blog on August 6 -- one week ago and two months after she endured surgery to clear a clogged bile duct and received the grim and frightening diagnosis of gallbladder cancer. Her cancer is stage IV -- not an uncommon staging for a hard-to-detect disease that many will only survive for two to six months. So Lynne is scared but still strong and hopeful and full of faith. Her goal is to live -- not die -- with cancer, even though her days may be numbered. So Lynne blogs her thoughts and fears and all the bits and pieces of information she gathers about a disease that is rare and resources that are scare. It helps her. And it will surely help others. And here is a glimpse into what she shared in her first post.

If you had only six months or a year to live, would you want to know? What would you do with the information? Would it make a difference in how you lived your life? These are questions I have been asking for the past two months. In asking them, I have also noticed how little guidance there is for this process. Who have I known personally who was able to anticipate their death? I can think of only two individuals, and I never asked them whether or not they were living differently in their awareness of their mortality.

So, those are the themes in this blog. I look forward to a dialog with those I know, and those I don't about this strange, life changing journey.

To Lynne -- and to all others who are faced with the disease -- may you find peace and comfort and strength in every step you take, every direction you follow, every path that becomes your road to recovery.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy. -- Shakespeare.

For Sonia, Alicia, Gloria, Maria -- women of deep religious faith who made a pilgrimage to the shrine of Guadalupe in Mexico City -- the visit was miraculous. Blanca Crovetto-Avancena arranged the Pasos de Esperanza, or Steps of Hope ten-mile walk the women took to the basilica. She runs the weekly San Francisco East Bay Spanish-speaking women's emotional and social support group for Latina women living with cancer. Crovetto-Avancena said the visit has lifted the spirits of these women trying to survive cancer and given each of them a remarkable sense of renewed hope.

In the feature article, Latina women 'cured' on pilgrimage, Crovetto-Avancena said that "while Americans organize fundraisers with walk-a-thons and marathons, those types of events are not part of the Latin American culture. But praying to the Virgin Mary at the place where she is said to have appeared in Mexico holds great significance."

Knowing this, she came up with the idea of arranging the pilgrimage as a way for Latinas to raise money for the support group that would also provide personal spiritual benefit for the women. All four women have reported great improvement in the way they feel. Sonia said, "Right now, nothing hurts. I don't feel that aching anymore that I felt when I left." Alicia said, "I feel cured spiritually, mentally and physically." To read more about the trip, go here.

I asked him when it sank in, that this might really be the real end
How's it hit 'cha when you get that kind of news?
Man what did ya do?
He said

I went skydiving
I went rocky mountain climbing
I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu
And I loved deeper
And I spoke sweeter
And I gave forgiveness I'd been denyin'
And he said some day I hope you get the chance
To live like you were dyin' -- Live Like You Were Dying lyrics

While Tim McGraw was recording Live Like You Were Dying, he lost his father, Tug McGraw, to brain cancer. During the two years Phillies and Mets major league baseball player relief pitcher Tug McGraw was battling brain cancer, he established the Tug McGraw Foundation. Recently, the Tug McGraw Foundation launched a website to provide people living with brain cancer information and support for the special issues facing survivors, family and friends. Tim McGraw will be the honorary chairman for his father's foundation. The song Live Like You Were Dying became one of McGraw's fastest rising singles and stayed on top of the Pop and Country charts for ten weeks, the longest stretch in thirty years.