What Cancer Took And What It Gave Back

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

If you had told me that cancer would deepen my faith and shape me into a better version of myself, I wouldn’t have believed you.

But in many ways it did.

Cancer stripped away the noise. It took the surface-level comforts and left me standing face-to-face with the core of who I was. And in that space raw, uncertain, and vulnerable. I discovered something stronger than fear: faith.

Not the kind of faith that’s built on convenience or routine, but the kind that’s tested, stretched, and ultimately strengthened in the quiet, painful moments. The kind that shows up at 3 a.m. when sleep won’t come and the future feels uncertain.

God met me there not in grand revelations, but in the stillness. In the waiting rooms. In the prayers that didn’t always have words. And through that process, I changed.

Cancer made me more compassionate. More grounded. It helped me let go of what didn’t matter and hold tighter to what does. I learned to give grace freely first to myself, then to others.

I’m not thankful for the diagnosis. But I’m deeply grateful for what God did through it.

Because when everything else was stripped away, what remained was faith and it was enough.