I have a confession to make.

I can’t talk to God about my cancer.

I was raised Catholic, went to Church every weekend as a child and happily wore a white dress and veil for my First Communion. (I much less happily wore the red robe for my Confirmation; red is sooo not my color). And then I decided I didn’t need Church or God and so walked away from the Church for a number of years. I still believed in God. I still even prayed on occasion. Every final exam season during law school saw me dragging my rosary beads out from under a stack of books, trashy magazines and caramel Nips wrappers on my nightstand and praying like a cloistered nun that I would pass whatever I was taking that semester. Once exams were over, the rosary beads would once again be buried under the detritus next to my bed.

When my husband and I decided to get married, we knew that we would get married in the Church, despite the fact that neither of us had been to Mass for years (with the stereotypical exceptions of Christmas and Easter).

We met with a priest at a local church and this guy was hardcore. He wanted us to meet with him for an hour or two a week for six months. He didn’t believe that the Church adequately prepared couples for marriage and that he saw it as his job to make sure that we knew that marriage was a sacrament and that we acted accordingly.

There is a lot to be said for religious guilt, because we did meet with him every week for six months. And while a lot of it seemed unnecessary, we did start going back to Church. We did start praying again, not just for gifts from God like a closer parking spot or another Super Bowl win for the Patriots, but for the things that really matter, like health and patience and strength. And another Super Bowl win for the Patriots.

Even when I wasn’t a faithful member of the Church, I did always believe that everything happened for a reason. And I believe that God directed us to that particular church and that particular hardcore priest because He knew that tough times were ahead. He knew that having a family wasn’t going to be as easy for us as opening a bottle of wine and queuing up Barry White on the ipod and letting nature take its course. He knew that we were going to need our faith to get through infertility and loss and heartache.

Oh, how I prayed to get pregnant. And to stay pregnant. I prayed to God. And the Virgin Mary. And a whole litany of saints. I wore a St. Gerard medal pinned to my bra (that was a fun conversation with the TSA). We went to special Masses for those hoping to conceive. It was all prayer for babies, all the time.

My prayers and my faith never stopped throughout our journey to become parents, even when loss brought us to our knees. The first phone call I made after I delivered our quints was to our priest to make funeral arrangements. There were precious little we could do for them as their parents, but we could give them our faith.

We remain a staple at Mass every Sunday morning. I’m sure there are many who would prefer that we kept our wiggling, stage-whispering, not-so-respectful kids at home, but we are giving them our faith.

But here’s my problem and what’s been weighing on me for the almost 8 months of my diagnosis:

I can’t pray about the cancer.

I’m not mad at God. I don’t blame Him for my diagnosis. I just can’t talk to Him about it.

When I’m on my knees in Church, I have a really hard time bringing it up. You would think that it would be the simplest thing in the world. It sucks and it’s hurting my kids and I didn’t deserve this. But instead, I simply feel resigned to the whole thing. I did believe for a while prior to my diagnosis that I already had my cross to bear. That God wasn’t going to let any other horrible, no-good, rotten, terrible thing happen to me. Yet, here I am. Lopsided and bald and soon-to-be radioactive.

Again, I’m not mad at God that this happened. I’ve accepted that this is my lot in life. I’m not trying to sound like a martyr, but I do believe that perhaps my lot in life is to be the person that people can look at when they’re going through hard times and say, “Well, my life might suck right now, but at least I’m not Meredith.” And I’m OK with that.

I admitted to my Dad early on in my diagnosis that I was having a hard time praying about my situation. I think about his response every day. He told me, Maybe it’s not your job to pray. Maybe you have to let others pray for you.

So that’s what I’ll do. I’ll let others pray for me. And if you are one of those who are praying for me, could you also just let God know I’m not mad at him? I can’t seem to do it myself.