In his return to teaching Sunday school over the weekend, former President Jimmy Carter told church attendees he feels “completely at ease with death” following his journey with cancer.
Carter, who at 95 is the oldest living former U.S. president, spoke at Maranatha Baptist Church in his hometown of Plains, Georgia, on Sunday, just two weeks after breaking his pelvis in a fall. In his lesson, he talked about how he came to accept the idea of death after being told in 2015 that his liver cancer had spread to his brain.
“I assumed, naturally, that I was going to die very quickly,” Carter said to the crowd, which Politico reported totaled about 400 people. “I obviously prayed about it. I didn’t ask God to let me live, but I asked God to give me a proper attitude toward death. And I found that I was absolutely and completely at ease with death.”
Carter beat cancer in December of 2015 after receiving experimental treatment that resulted in removing part of his liver.
At the time, Carter had said that his fate was “in the hands of God’ and that he would teach Sunday school at his hometown church “as long as I’m physically able.” He gave a sermon at the church every Sunday until he broke his pelvis falling in his home Oct. 21.
The church previously said the injury would lead Carter to miss his weekly sermons, but later announced that the former president would teach his normal schedule.
Carter ended up missing only one Sunday school class after the injury.