Wow, now there's a topic we wish we never would have to talk about. And in so many ways I don’t feel as if I’m qualified to stand before you. Because the comfort I’ve received far outweighs the mourning.

But when you deal with cancer, you have the opportunity to experience both.

My daughter Shanna was 9 months old, she was diagnosed with acute lympoblastic leukemia.

For the next two years we walked through the valley of the shadow of death. Shanna had chemo for 6 months, than we moved up to Fred Hutch where she had total body radiation then a bone marrow transplant, when she was one.

I think this poem best depicts our experience.

 CANCER

 I cried all the night for the fear of the word

 The doctor’s prognosis I’d only just heard.

 I shook with the anguish a mother can know

 When her child is hurting, her life an unknown.

 I knew I should trust you, I prayed for to gain

 The peace that you promise in the midst of the pain.

 I had to give back this child you’d just given.

 So new from my womb. So new from your heaven.

 Our trial it lasted much longer than hoped

 2 years in the making. 2 years I could quote.

 Throughout our ordeal, just one thing was clear.

 No matter what happened you always were near.

 The treatment they told us would leave such a mark.

 But you chose to protect her right from the start.

 If we would just call you, If we would just ask.

 You’d fortify our hearts regardless the task.

 You picked us up when we fell, You showed us your way.

 You drew close our families and softened their pain.

 Your saints prayed and prayed; their answers were won.

 When you gave back our child the battle was done.

 She’s whole and she’s happy you never would guess.

 All that she went through, all that has passed.

 We celebrating daily the trial we bore,

 What a miracle you gave us, her life and much more.

 You taught us to trust you. You taught us to care.

 You taught us to hope in the midst of despair.

 You know us so well from the depths of our soul.

 You taught us to be faithful when the chances were nil.

 You know us so well from the depths of our soul.

 For you are our God. You’re most powerful.

 You know us so well from the depths of our soul.

 You comfort and cry with us, tremble and shake,

 You smile with us, laugh with us till our side’s ache.

 You know us so well from the depths of our soul.

 For each cell you created until we were whole.

 We’ve learned now to give back overwhelming praise.

 For you are the God of Amazing Grace.

When bad things happen to us, don’t we mourned the loss of the dream of the way life should be. We think, “This shouldn’t be happening to me.” And we do everything we can to get out of it as soon as possible, rather than embracing the moment and gleaning all God has for us.

The Lord used the experience with Shanna to bring 28 members of my step-family and many friends to the Lord. Now there’s a little blessing and comfort!

Sharon was one of those people. She was another young mom whose baby also had cancer. We met on the cancer wing of the Swedish Hospital. She taught me how to embrace the trial and I was able to share Jesus with her.

After 6 months of chemo, Mike and Shanna and I moved to Seattle, where Shanna would receive her bone marrow transplant. I dreaded going into the Lamar Air Flow room in the hospital because I knew Shanna might not make it out alive. The nurses understood my hesitation and suggested I meet one of the families whose baby was also in an LAAF room. Sharon was standing behind the plastic curtain leaning over the crib playing with Monica and she was just beaming. Her eyes were so big and bright, I was shocked. I came right out and asked her “How can you be so happy?” She said, I’m here with Monica, Doug is here, we love each other and we get to spend all day together as a family. I realized if she can do it with that kind of attitude so could I. Sharon and I became close friends.

Sharon started going to church with me, and during this time she found out she was pregnant.

She complained to me one day that she was feeling so tired and nauseous and she didn’t have time for this new child because Monica needed all her strength. Yet God planned for that pregnancy, because Monica did not survive.

And as Sharon mourned for the child she lost, she poured out her heart to Jesus and accepted Him as her savior. When her new baby girl was born, she named her little girl Grace, because of how the Lord had blessed and comforted her.

And as cancer struck our family again, just last year, I had to deal with my own mortality. I could die. Leaving Mike and Shanna , who is now 11. I knew in my head that it would be okay; after all, I know if I died I’d be with Christ. Yet, I found myself holding onto life with all my strength.

•  I was hurt, I was angry, I didn’t want to have my breast amputated, and I didn’t want to go through chemo, I didn’t want to have radiation, or have my hair fall out.

•  And I wasn’t ready to die.

But I was determined this round to have an authentic faith in the midst of this trial and figure out how to embrace the situation.

So I cried out to God, moment by moment. And it’s not that he kept me from having to experience difficult things. It’s that he was right beside me when I did. I could feel his presence. And in his presence I prayed, “ Lord, if you are calling for my life, I’m not ready, but I know you can make me ready. Lord, please change my heart.”

That night after praying that prayer, I woke up to the moon shining on me through my window. I’d had a dream of a child with long brown wavy hair running in a field. For just a moment I thought, “Who was that child?” but before I even finished asking the question I knew. I remembered another night many years before, when I’d been woken by the moonlight.

I had had a miscarriage and I was mourning the loss of a baby I would never know. As I lay there trying to get back to sleep I was praying. And as if Christ was right in the room with me I heard Him say, “I am holding your little girl in my arms and I have named her Rebecca”.

With that memory, I recognized the little girl running in the field to be my Rebecca. God was giving me a brief window into eternity and I realized that if I should die I would be able to meet the child I have never held. I rolled over and went back to sleep with bittersweet tears. The Lord was answering my prayer.

But He wasn’t done. I woke up the next morning singing an old hymn:

 This world is not my home,

 I’m just a passing through.

 The heavens are laid up some where beyond the blue,

 the angels beckon me and there’s one thing I know–

 that I can’t feel at home in this world any more.

That is a song I hadn’t sung for 15 years, yet I couldn’t get it out of my head.

Shanna and I got in the car to go to school and she asked me to turn on the radio - the song that came on the radio was “I Can Only Imagine.”

 Surrounded by your glory what will my heart feel?

 Will I dance for you Jesus or in awe of you be still?

 Will I stand in your glory,

 to my knees will I fall?

 Will I sing hallelujah,

 will I be able to speak at all?

 I can only imagine, I can only imagine.

By the time I got to school, I was a basket case. I parked the car to let Shanna out and a friend who worked in the office comes running out saying, “I have a present for you” and she gave me a book. It was written by Jill Brisco called “Faith Enough to Finish”. By then I was crushed. And I knew God was calling for my life.

As I sat there in mourning, I realized He called for my life the day I accepted Christ as my savior. There is nothing different about this calling, other than my understanding. He was calling for my life just as he is calling for yours, if you know Him personally. The truth is we all belong to him. And He has numbered our days. We all will die. We don’t get to choose. God does.

What we do get to choose is how we will live. Will it be like this, (with an open palm) or like this (fist.) At that moment I was able to let go of this life and put it down at the foot of the cross.

That decision took on a new dimension a few days later when I walked into the surgical wing of the hospital and they asked me to get up on the table for my surgery. The table was shaped like a cross and I had to spread out my arms and they secured them and they secured my legs.

And as the anesthesia took effect, I felt a bond with my savior like I had never known before. Here I am, Lord, my life is yours to do with what you will.

Dealing with cancer has taught me this, “This life is a grain of sand on the beach of eternity. “ In other words, this life isn’t about this life. This life is about our eternity. And that is what God is concerned about. He does more than just allow trials. He orchestrates them in a way that creates a wonderful vibrant melody to our lives, if we let him. It has high notes and low notes and everything in between.

The past year has taught me not to fear cancer, not to fear death. Instead I appreciate every hour God gives me, and try to hold the things of this world with an open hand. I’ve learned to surrender to the will of God, and in that surrender I find everything I need.

If you have never made a decision to give your life to Christ, or if you’re holding on to this world with a clenched fist, I pray my story can give you pause, and maybe you can receive blessings from it as you open up your palm and hold it up to God.

Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Psalm 23 is a well know passage that I have clung to, Let me sing it for you.

 The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.

 He makes me lie down in green pastures,

 He leads me beside the still waters,

 He restores my soul.

 He leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

 Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death

 I will fear no evil for thou art with me;

 Your rod and your staff they comfort me.

 Thou prepared a table before me in the presence of my enemies.

 Thou anointest my head with oil, My cup runneth over

 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,

 and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever and ever.

 The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.