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Religion |
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| Hearing God: Persistent 'voice inside' leads to life-saving treatment |
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| By Diane Reynolds, Times Staff Writer |
Sunday, April 29, 2007 |
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Angie Zepp of Silver Run had a feeling she couldn't shake. Although the 36-year-old was healthy and had no lumps or visible cancer symptoms, a voice inside told her to get a mammogram.
Her doctor advised her not to worry, but the voice persisted. After two months, Angie went in for the mammogram.
She was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a double mastectomy.
"I am thankful, every single day, for listening to that whisper that God sent me," Angie said. "I don't believe it was by chance."
She wants other people to hear her message: God does speak to you. It's a message that puts her directly in the mainstream of Judeo-Christian theology. From before God spoke to Moses from the burning bush to today, a core Jewish and Christian belief is God intervenes in the life of his human creation.
Both groups believe he parted the Red Sea to allow the Israelites to escape from the Egyptians.
Christians believe he sent his son to live on earth.
St. Francis of Assisi, a Roman Catholic, believed God spoke to him to tell him to rebuild his church. Quaker John Woolman believed he was brought back from the brink of death to continue the fight against slavery.
And Angie Zepp believes she has a mission to spend the rest of her life serving God.
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Her pastor at St. Mary's United Church of Christ in Silver Run, the Rev. Richard Scott, remembered marrying Angie and her husband, Gene Zepp.
"I'm very grateful she was aware of what was happening to her," he said.
Christians can listen for God's voice, he said, in ways as minute as what to buy in the grocery store and as broad as discerning a career path. Most pastors, he said, listen for God's call to ordination.
A major tenet of the United Church of Christ is that God is still speaking, he said.
A journey
Angie said she was angry with God about some issues in her life that had not gone the way she had wished. A married woman with a 5-year-old daughter, she taught physical education at Linton Springs Elementary School in Sykesville. Despite a life that looked fine on the surface, she still questioned God.
But at the same time, she did spiritual work, volunteering at St. Mary's and attending church services, praying and talking to God daily, reading the Bible and watching "Coral Ridge Hour" and "In Touch" on television every Sunday.
She might have been mad at God, but he was not distant, she said.
Ever since her diagnosis, she said, her anger at God has faded away. Even the pain and emotional anguish of a double mastectomy has not undermined her gratitude.
"He was taking care of me," she said. "I am forever changed, from my inner core. I see life differently."
She had been asking God to show her his will and saw the warning about the cancer as God's message that was looking out for her welfare, whether she understood it or not.
"What I hear her saying," Scott said, "is ... your inner voice may save your life. That's a broader statement than just physical reality."
Cancer, which many people would consider one of the worst things to happen, had another benefit for Angie: she understood as she had not before how much she was loved.
Her family, the Linton Springs staff, her church, the medical staff at Carroll Hospital Center and even strangers have reached out to her with kindness and compassion she never expected, she said.
Karma?
While an expectation that God will speak to his people might be common to those from the Western tradition, Buddhists would view Angie's events from a different perspective.
"We wouldn't presume to say there is or isn't a God," said Craig Storti, a Therevada Buddhist from the International Mediation Center in Westminster. "It's not that we don't believe in God, but we don't put it in those terms. We don't know ... the Buddha only taught what he could see."
What Buddha did see was karma, good or bad, created by the deeds a person did. Those who do deeds of kindness and love develop good karma, which comes back to them.
Buddha would probably explain Angie's understanding that she had cancer as the result of good deeds she had done in her life, Storti said. And the parting of the Red Sea would be the result of the good karma built up by Moses and his followers.
"Good things result of good karma," he said.
Scott said he did not think Angie attributed her good fortune to good deeds or a sense of karma.
In Christian terms, what happened was grace, an undeserved gift from God.
"She's sensing amazing grace," Scott said.
The Rev. John Deckenbach, Central Atlantic Conference minister of the United Church of Christ, sees the gift of free will operating in Angie's situation. God left humans free to choose to follow or not follow God's leadings, he said. Angie, he said, made the right choice.
"When you make a right decision, we believe you have been guided by God or the supreme being," he said.
Angie spoke of feeling humbled and of wanting to give back.
"I want to serve others in our community," she said, "by helping in nursing homes, helping other cancer patients, raising cancer awareness/fundraising and spreading God's love."
Reach staff writer Diane Reynolds at 410-857-7873 or reynoldsd@lcniofmd.com.
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