How I Responded to My Diagnosis: This Cancer Does Not Own Me

This week I was diagnosed with breast cancer. 

Regardless of how life-changing those words are, this cancer does not own me. It will not take a hold of me, smother me or bury me in its darkness. It will not define me or control me or have any power to drag me through the mud. No way. Before you applaud my positivity or fortitude or ability to meet an obstacle so ominous with apparent bravery, please hear me. This strength doesn’t come from somewhere within myself. This kind of strength and all-consuming peace can only come from a God who is bigger than the mountains of cancer, anxiety, rejection, death and a million other heartaches we face in this life. 

And guess what.... this bigger-than-every-bad-thing God was NOT surprised by my diagnosis. 

With all my heart I believe He knew. And not only that, Friends, but I believe he takes things like cancer and uses them as tools in His ever-capable hands to construct something useful and good and beautiful. 

We may not understand the mind of God or agree with the way He chooses to bring about goodness and beauty in our lives, but we can trust that, like a loving father, His intentions are for our best. 

“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out! ‘Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?’ ‘Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?’ For from him and through him and for him are all things. To him be the glory forever! Amen.”
‭‭Romans‬ ‭11:33-36‬

“But I will sing of your strength, in the morning I will sing of your love; for you are my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble.”
‭‭Psalm‬ ‭59:16

However strong the tides of forgetfulness may be, I will fight to remember truth: I was made for a purpose by a good God, who is a refuge for me in times of trouble. I can laugh in the face of my biggest fear and hold onto hope with the fiercest grip because this cancer does not own me.