Dr. Jimmy Walters is also a published author and dynamic speaker, focusing on spirituality, fatherhood, advocating for human rights and human dignity, leadership development, and strategic planning.

The past year, he started walking the healing journey after a Stage IV colon cancer diagnosis. As he heals, he invites others to join him in transitioning from pain and suffering to transformation for self and others.

Dr. Walters' three books focus on the spirituality of leadership and fatherhood. He has a weekly blog and podcast titled "The Healing Journey with Dr. Jimmy Walters."

Walters' work has been featured in the NY Daily News, US Catholic, Newsday, Busted Halo, SIRIUS XM, Catholic Faith Network, This is the Day, The Art of Fatherhood, Fordham Center on Religion and Culture, among other media outlets.

Dr. Walters also serves as the NGO Representative to the United Nations for the Sisters of Charity Federation. At the UN, he represents the Federation in their commitment of charity, justice, and human rights for all. He also contributes to the Vincentian Family in various leadership responsibilities.

Prior to working at the United Nations, Dr. Walters was the first Director of the nationally recognized Catholic Scholars program and Director of Residence Ministry at St. John's University. He served in ministry at St. John's for nearly two decades, overseeing a variety of ministry, service, and justice initiatives. He was also faculty in the Graduate School of Education and the Institute for Core Studies.

Dr. Walters lives on Long Island, New York, with his beloved Suzie and beautiful daughters, Shea and Lily. He is also a huge Mets, Bills, and Knicks fan!

My website is http://www.drjimmywalters.com.

You can also learn more about my work through the following resources:

• https://linktr.ee/drjimmywalters
• https://www.focolaremedia.com/author/james-r-walters

Welcome to 12 Minute Converse with Jesus Believers.

God chose first to have a conversation with us, his creation. Our prayer is that this listening

space brings growth and transforms your life forever. I praise God for you, Jimmy. It's a

great pleasure to connect with you. What part of the world are you in today? So I am coming to you

from Long Island, New York. Tell me about the doctor part of your name. Where did that come

from? Sure. I have a doctorate in education from St. John's University in New York. My research

is focusing on young adults and their faith journey. I used to work in ministry at the

university, so I was blessed to accompany many students on their faith journey. And I was just

curious about when at that point when so many young people were maybe not identifying with

the religious tradition or their faith, like why this group of students who I worked with did.

So that became the subject of my research and it was just a blessing to get to know them better

and understand their own faith journey. Being from Queens, did you encounter many Caribbean

people? Is my accent strange to you? You probably know this, that Queens is like one of the most

diverse places in the whole world. At St. John's, where I was blessed to go to school and also work,

there were over 100 countries that were represented there. And I think it still is the case.

So no, the accent is very familiar to me. A lot of our students are from the Caribbean.

They bring a different energy, which is such a gift, especially with the diversity of students.

They get to know each other from different parts of the world and

what a whole gift that is, just to have that education outside of the classroom.

Would you label yourself as someone who was able to trod the safe lines in the midst of

being a city guy?

I grew up with really amazing parents, but they were also very strict.

And they instilled in me at a young age, just like responsibility.

And so I had to start working at a young age and so I kind of had to be responsible and

get to bed at a good hour and not cause any problems. And so I think I always have been

on the safe side and surrounded myself with good people and people who brought out the

best of me, not the worst of me. And I've always been a part of a faith community too.

So I think that has been a blessing. And I try to do that now as my kids,

to surround them with good people. And yeah, I mean, there's a lot of temptations.

There's a lot of opportunities to maybe engage in behaviors or things that aren't best for you.

And you can learn from those. I think that we all make mistakes and have different experiences,

but I tend to be a little bit more safer in how I approach things and

try to find the good in it all.

How many children do you have? You mentioned your children.

Yeah, I have two little girls. My oldest, Shay, is going to be 10 years old.

And my youngest, Lily, is six years old.

Are you married?

I am. My wife and I actually met, it'll be 19 years this summer.

We actually met at the church on campus at St. John's University.

And she tells the story that she went home that day and called her aunt and her best friend

and said that she met the guy she was going to marry.

My wife and I will be 19 as well in June.

We're blessed to find partners, right, who you can live life with.

Especially 19, yeah. I've been given a gift, yeah.

Me too.

Now that we've loaded those stories,

and now that I know that you've been diagnosed with stage four colon cancer,

walk me through, and of course, everyone that's listening who is probably thinking,

what? Like, where did that come from, right?

Walk me through what that process was, hearing the diagnosis.

It came out of nowhere, which I think is often the case.

I didn't have any real physical symptoms from this cancer.

I had some bleeding that I thought was hemorrhoids, to be fully honest with you.

And I had a doctor who, nine months prior to my diagnosis, thought the same thing.

But the bleeding was enough at some point last June where

I said, I need to see a different doctor.

I went to my wife's doctor and she ordered a colonoscopy.

She ordered some blood work.

The blood work showed that I was anemic, that I was losing blood.

So the colonoscopy was essential.

And then at that point, they found a large tumor in my colon.

Again, some of it's a blur, to be honest with you.

But I was thinking about this last night.

And when the doctor came and told me that they found this large tumor,

there was a woman who was recovered from a colonoscopy across the room.

And she was like, son, I'm praying for you.

And it was the first of many, many people who have been praying for me.

But I think it hit me in that moment of like,

oh, I'm on this side of this now.

Quickly, it was meeting with doctors.

And then God brought all the right people into my life at the right moment

and had a wonderful surgeon.

And they found cancer, not just in the colon, but also in my lymph nodes

and in my stomach lining.

And that's tricky because when we do these scans,

the stomach lining is very difficult to identify any cancer.

So that's always going to be a question,

even how much you can trust the scans.

But as of the end of August of last summer,

I've been experiencing chemotherapy for every other week.

So it's over 10 months now.

I had a scan in the end of January that was not great.

There was some new cancer that was developing.

But thank God, my last scan showed that all that cancer was gone.

And I really credit the people who are praying for me.

I think of myself as healed.

Whatever that healing means, I don't know.

I pray it means full physical healing.

But the prayer from people of all different faith traditions,

people certainly from my Christian and Catholic background,

people who I don't even know who have just offered prayers for me.

I believe in the power of prayer deeply.

And it's sustained me through this.

You see the connection of everything,

the reason of the fever that you've experienced

due to the choices you've made coming up as a child to this day.

It's hard to say whenever you have a health diagnosis,

you're quick to look for a reason why.

Even like my doctors say that

because colon cancer is really on the rise among younger people.

And it's part of the reason why I like talking about is

for people who are listening to this to take their body seriously.

And so even if the doctors are not giving you the right answers,

you have to stay on top of it and take your health seriously

and find doctors that will care for you or for your loved ones

if you're in a caretaker role.

There's all questions like, well, is it what you ate growing up?

I was sick as a kid.

So I was on antibiotics a lot.

And so there's some questions like, did that lead to this?

We don't know.

And I look at it as a place of faith.

This is a challenge.

I trust in God's love and that this is a cross that I have to bear.

But I look at any difficulty, any crosses

as an opportunity for transformation to come out of that.

And really, my relationship with Christ has deepened so much

over this past year in ways that I couldn't even express prior to all this.

So I call it a healing journey.

I think that's what this is.

Not just the healing from cancer, but other healing.

And it leads me to a deeper relationship with Christ.

And then being the best person I can,

forever as long as I'm going to live here on this planet,

I think there's gifts that come out of it.

The favor that you experienced from the people that prayed for you,

the family members that supported you,

do you believe that is part and parcel of you coming up

the way you did, the choices you made as well in life?

When you grow up in a faith tradition, like certainly I did,

you're taught about why we pray, what a relationship with Christ looks like.

I can remember when I was a kid, my mom was sick.

And just her praying every night.

And so that instills something on you, right?

You can see why later in life, when something happens to you,

you go back to your beginnings.

And to have that model is really important.

I've struggled with the question of healing and why me?

When you see there's so much suffering in the world

and people who maybe aren't experiencing the healings that they are praying for.

And I also do advocacy work at the United Nations.

So I'm constantly surrounded by news of people

who are really suffering.

They lack basic rights and basic human rights.

And their dignity is not upheld.

And you question why?

Like, why does that happen?

Or why are people suffering?

And those are questions I guess I'm always going to wrestle with.

But I don't think of this healing as something that I did to deserve.

And I don't look at it as it's not that I prayed a certain way

or I have a kind of checkbox of all these good things that you do.

I think it's more of trusting and loving God's mercy and love.

And just being blessed by that.

And that's why I said I don't know what the healing is.

I pray the healing is I live a long life.

Maybe the healing is for a few months.

Maybe the healing is for a year.

I don't know that.

I'm not going to know that.

But there are blessings in all of this that I try to be aware of

and remain faithful to.

And so it's more of a, I would say, a perspective that I have

that has just been the organic development of my faith,

which started at such a young age.

Five years from today, you're listening to this conversation.

What's a message you'd leave for future you?

Well, I hope I'm alive.

Which I think says a lot because I wouldn't have said that a year ago.

I'm 43.

So I never thought five years I could be gone.

And statistically, that's the case.

The statistics are not great.

But again, I believe in healing and I believe in miracles.

And I trust this process.

So I guess, I hope I'm alive.

Assuming that I am.

I think it's that this is a part of this chapter of my life.

And I'm blessed because of it.

And that my relationship with Christ is deeper.

My relationship with all of God's creation is deeper.

That I'm a really loving, kind dad and husband, as I've tried to be.

And that I have a better sense of understanding

what this suffering means for me in my vocations in the world.

So what is it?

Why did I have to go through this as a writer?

Why did I have to go through this as a speaker?

Why did I have to go through this in my advocacy work at the United Nations?

Like, there has to be good that benefits others in this.

I can answer some of that today.

But I would hope five years from now,

that I could look back and see God's hand through all of it.

Dimitri, a pleasure, a treasure.

Thank you for being on What Is Inspired.

That's what I'm going to call this.