(Stock Photo – Canva)
By Dan Sherven
Tammy Peterson is a public speaker, podcaster, registered massage therapist, cancer survivor, and wife of Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson. Having been diagnosed with a rare form of cancer, she was told she had ten months to live. With the help of a Catholic friend, she began praying the Rosary from her hospital room, sometimes for up to two hours a day.
On her 30th wedding anniversary, she became the only known person to have ever recovered from that particular cancer. She is now a catechumen in the Catholic Church, meaning that she is on the path to full communion with the Church. She recently spoke about the importance of Mother Mary, the adventure of doing God’s will, the nature of prayer, and why she chose Catholicism as her spiritual home.
“I think Mother Mary was important to me from the time I was a young girl,” Tammy says. “I went to the Protestant church, and I didn’t feel that mother Mary was a prominent figure in the teachings of the Protestant church, and I missed that.” Tammy adds, “now that I’m getting ready to go into the Catholic Church, and I’m praying the Rosary every day—and Mother Mary’s a prominent figure in the Catholic faith—it seems right to me. [Catholicism] was my great-grandmother’s faith. She was Catholic, so it’s not surprising that maybe I had some Catholicism in my blood.”
Tammy also speaks about how, after her mother’s death, Tammy’s daughter had “a couple of major surgeries because she was so ill. [Tammy] used to pray to [her own] mother all the time.” Currently, Tammy has “weekly meetings” with her priest and has told her priest about how she used to pray to her mother “every night.” She explained that she would pray that her mother “would intervene and help” with Tammy’s sick daughter. The priest assured her that this was not uncommon. “And I would say that praying to my mother was really—I was praying to Mother Mary. I was praying to what’s best in mothers. I was praying to the highest of—what is, [and] what was in my mother, and in every mother—and that’s Mother Mary.”
Additionally, Tammy says that life becomes more adventurous when you do God’s will. “Because you don’t know where you’re going. So it’s a little bit like you have blinders on because you’re not the one who’s deciding where you’re going to go. You’re taking your cues from your conscience.” She says that “you can plan for your future” and “have a dream,” particularly one where a person has “conjured up [their] deepest desires” and laid them down “in as specific [a] manner as possible—so that you can go towards [those goals].”
But she notes how a person might find “that things work out in a way [one] had never planned when you do God’s will. It’s remarkable to see that things could end up better than you planned.” Tammy points out how people tend to “worry about how things could go. But if you leave it up to God and you don’t take control of the situation—because lots of people think if they take control, then they can work it out—but if you actually just pay attention and are present, and respond to what’s there, then things go in a manner that is more of a dance between you and the other person. So it’s more of a dance, and that rhythm—that’s God’s will. That rhythm of life that’s playful and dance-like; that’s where you want to be.”
“You want to be in a position to do the next right thing,” Tammy says. “And that’s all there is—is the next right thing.” So “you pray. You ask for courage and strength, and you do the next right thing.” She adds, “we’re suffering individuals; we’re broken; and we need to pray for what we need—whether it’s courage or strength or compassion or kindness—whatever it is that we need; we have to ask for those things. And then it’ll be given. If we’re truly asking.”
In choosing her spiritual home, Tammy found “that Catholicism was more accessible. So, it was the path of least resistance when I was looking to belong. [Catholicism] seemed to be the most straightforward way to go, and so that’s the way I went. Then, as I went in that direction, I also found that I have this history of Catholicism in my family, so it made sense in a way. And my friend Queenie [Yu], who came to the hospital and gave me a rosary, she was Catholic, so there were signs that were coming in my direction—that Catholicism was the direction I should go.
“[Catholicism has] a good history. It’s got a deep history. And I want to belong to a faith that has a deep history and is true to the Scriptures.” Tammy Peterson will be received into the Catholic Church this Easter. Watch the full interview with Tammy Peterson on Dan Sherven Interviews.
Dan Sherven is the author of four books, including the number one bestseller Classified: Off the Beat ‘N Path and Uncreated Light. Sherven is also an award-winning journalist, writing for several publications. Find Sherven’s work.
