In the spirit of Thanksgiving, Nolan and I have been reflecting on God’s provision in difficult times and all of the things we’re thankful for. Life has not been easy for us over the last four years, but we recognize that amidst the trials are blessings upon blessings. We believe this is no coincidence and want to testify that God answers prayers!
As you probably already know, these last few years with cancer in the mix have been extremely stressful and disheartening for us and our families. For a while, years actually, we felt like there was no hope when treatment after treatment failed and the cancer in my body kept growing. We prayed fervently for almost three years that just one treatment would work and to our dismay, nothing proved to be effective. The constant disappointment and heartbreak led us to doubt medicine, and face the harsh reality that maybe physical healing was not a part of God’s plan for my life. Talk about a real gut punch.
Since November of 2023, we say with utmost excitement that the tables have finally turned! I have been in the same clinical trial at MD Anderson for a full year and on top of that, it is going extremely well! My scans have revealed a 31% decrease in size of the tumors on my liver. Because of this, I can officially say I am experiencing a partial response to treatment! Hallelujah! My labs show decreasing tumor markers time and time again. I’ve been feeling really good physically for someone who has stage IV cancer, and my liver continues to function like normal despite having numerous cancerous lesions. The side effects from the medication I take everyday are essentially nonexistent (especially for someone who has experienced I.V. Chemotherapy multiple times). We do not take these miracles for granted and are SO extremely grateful. These are the things we have been praying for, for over three and a half years!
Despite treatment going well for me, we’ve experienced other stressors in this season of life including the financial toll that traveling to Texas every month has taken. Earlier this fall, we were at a point where we were seriously concerned that we wouldn’t be able to pay all of our bills, which is a terrible feeling. We knew our annual golf outing was coming up just in time to help pick us back up, as it has seemed to do every year. Thanks to our amazing, kind, and supportive group of family and friends, we once again received a large chunk of money from our golf outing in September to help us get by for the next couple months! We felt so blessed and relieved to have a financial cushion again and praised God for continuing to provide for us.
In the midst of this, Nolan’s truck ended up breaking down (this was not the first time in the last year). It forced us to decide it really was time for us to buy a new car which, as you know, is never cheap. I kid you not, that same day, we received generous checks from multiple people that covered the cost of a car for us. We also were able to find a reliable car in a timely manner! We went from being extremely disappointed and stressed, thinking, “we can never catch a break,” to being flabbergasted by the ways God answered our prayers through the generosity of his people.
Recently, Nolan and I began to search for a house to call our own. This is one of those “pre-cancer” dreams we had, that we genuinely believed would never happen for us because of the instability of cancer and its financial burden. Now, we are planning to close on a house later this week and are feeling as though we actually have enough stability to wisely do so! Another HUGE answer to prayer.
Answered prayers are not always this tangible, and that is why I believe it’s so important to share when they are, as a reminder that God does care about the little details and listens to our prayers. For me personally, hearing the answered prayers of other believers is so encouraging. It’s also important to me to take note of God’s evident faithfulness, so that in the future if/when the hard times come again, I can look back and see God’s hand in every single detail.
Though traveling back and forth to Houston every month is exhausting and expensive, it truly is an answer to prayer. It may not be the way we pictured it — at U of M in Michigan — and the timeline was definitely not what we wanted — couldn’t the first or second or maybe even the third treatment have worked? — but God is doing big things.
So often, we expect God to deliver right away and answer our prayers in the exact way we feel is best. When life keeps bringing us down and throwing more and more hardships our way, we start to feel abandoned and hopeless. The continued unanswered prayers lead to disappointment and heartache, and create doubts that God doesn’t actually care about our lives or what we’re going through. This lie is so easily believed at the lowest lows, in the deepest, darkest valleys — trust me, I’ve been there, but this just isn’t true!
It may be easy for Nolan and me to say that looking back over the last few years God has been in all of the details when we’re currently standing on the mountaintop, but it’s so amazing to witness how He’s been at work through the good times and the bad. He clearly put us on this long and difficult path for a reason. Without the continued hardships, we wouldn’t be where we are now in our spiritual walk. Our continued need to rely on God’s strength when we had nothing left, strengthened us and our faith in ways we could never imagine. The people He provided to be there for us gave us the support and encouragement we needed. When anxieties filled our minds, there was always an unexplainable sense of peace in our hearts. In the midst of our hardships, God was present. He was answering our prayers in ways we didn’t understand at the time. And now, we look back and see the little blessings sprinkled along the difficult road that led us to today where we can see His providence and healing that we have longed for, for years. There were so many days when it felt like God was never going to answer our prayers, but He did in His own time and His own way, and for this we are so grateful!
Although we are in a happy season of life, and pray daily that this continues, I know there is still a chance that my treatment will eventually stop working. This is a sad reality of stage IV cancer. I say this not to be pessimistic, but to acknowledge the fact that regardless of what the future holds, God’s got me (and Nolan, and our families). I don’t know what next month, or next year looks like, but I know that God is faithful in the valley and on the mountaintop. Can I get an Amen?!
Unfortunately, many people we know are going through hard times right now, especially my fellow cancer warriors. It breaks our hearts seeing people we love experience hardships that no one should ever have to face. Nolan and I have been there, and we understand how discouraging it is when time and time again things keep falling apart. Life is challenging, and there are so many injustices in this world that may never make sense to us on this side of heaven. If you’re feeling discouraged, I hope that in sharing part of our story, you will be reminded that God does care. He is always there, and He listens to all of our prayers, big
and small. Keep asking Him for those miracles. You never know when He might surprise us with something better than we could ever imagine.
“This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to His will, he hears us.” 1 John 5: 14
”Now all glory to God, who is able, through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.” Ephesians 3:20
