“You’re lucky. You’ve got the best kind of cancer.” I literally laughed aloud. I heard those words twenty years before. My oncologist, Dr. Chan, was a bit taken aback and gave me a quizzical look. I’m sure he wasn’t used to that reaction from his patients.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Chan,  but that’s exactly what Dr. Ruby said when he told me I had thyroid cancer.” 

That day was similar to another October day twenty years earlier when I sat in a different office, with a different doctor. Back then, I had my three-month-old daughter, Kirby, sitting next to me in a baby car seat. This time, she was twenty years old, accompanying me and driving me to my doctor’s appointment. Both times, I knew that my faith in God would bring me peace.

I remember a lot of tears and melodramatic songs played on repeat, but one song on my playlist spoke to me, the good old standard hymn “It Is Well with My Soul” by Horatio G. Spafford.

When peace like a river, attendeth my way…

I am not a stranger to the unwanted medical diagnosis. When I was twenty-eight,  I felt like the world might end. Here I was, a brand new mom, wondering if I would be able to see my daughter grow up. To top it off, we lost our childcare, my husband was diagnosed with Bell’s Palsy, and due to my radiation treatment, I had to move out of the house for a month until I was no longer radioactive. 

When sorrows like sea billows roll…

I missed Kirby’s first Thanksgiving and her fourth month of life. I had to sit at the far end of the table at my parent’s house because the radiation required a six-foot distance from everyone under the age of sixty. 

Whatever my lot, thou has taught me to say
It is well, it is well, with my soul.

After my first diagnosis, driving down Plaza Del Amo on a beautiful fall day, it hit me that it needed to be well with my soul. It had to be well with my soul or I’d wallow. 

Twenty years later when I heard the word cancer for the second time, a stage 2 diagnosis of HER 2+ Breast Cancer, I was driving down the road and heard Ellie Holcomb singing. I realized I was on my personal “Red Sea Road.” Just like in God’s parting of the Red Sea for the Israelites, His divine intervention in my life was unexpected, difficult to explain, and out of my control. For whatever reason, I was given the opportunity to experience life with cancer once again and I knew that my friends and family would journey this unexpected path with me once more. And this time, my playlist offered another set of encouraging words from Ellie Holcomb. 

You were overwhelming me with peace…
You're gonna carry me through everything.
You were drawing near, You're overwhelming all my fear.

But, isn’t that the truth? God has carried me through everything and has overwhelmed me with peace. In Exodus 14:14 it is written: “The Lord will fight for you; you need only to be still.” It’s the unexpected, haunting, parts of life where God carries me, comforts me, and consoles me, His child. 

This full-circle moment helped me see that God’s hand is continuing to bless and comfort me. He loves me, and as my Father, why wouldn’t He? God is here with us and will always offer us a road to comfort, to peace, and to Him.