Just months after welcoming my fourth child, I heard the words, “You have cancer.”
I was 36. I had a newborn baby and three other kids to care for. My world shattered.

In the early days after my diagnosis, I searched everywhere for encouragement from someone who sounded like me — a young mom with little kids, toys clattering in the background, trying to keep up with snack requests while suddenly facing the possibility of not watching them grow up.

Most of what I found was written by women decades further down the road. Their words were helpful, but I ached to hear from someone who understood the strange tension of packing lunches, driving the carpool, and then heading to chemotherapy.

Before cancer, I thought I was preparing myself for suffering by constantly imagining worst-case scenarios. I mistook anxiety for readiness. But when the waters actually rose, I discovered something surprising: nothing can prepare your heart for the storm.

Along the way, I discovered something else too — God shows up not only when things go well, but also when biopsies are positive, scans are uncertain, and the road ahead feels impossibly heavy. My diagnosis forced me to dig deeper, to hurl my questions, doubts, and fears at God with frustration and confusion, but also with a desperate clinging to hope.

I have learned so much, and I continue to uncover new layers of what it looks like to slowly walk the road of suffering while a small crew of curious little people watches closely, learning what faith looks like in the furnace.

I’m writing this not because it’s easy, and not because I have it all figured out. I’m not looking back on cancer from years down the road in tidy triumph. I’m still in it.

I finished infusions less than four months ago. My port is still in. At this moment I am waiting for results from an abnormal scan. Uncertainty still defines my future. I still pray every night that God will let me see my little people grow up.

This space exists because this road is really, truly hard — and because God has asked me to share my experience—not once I’m safely on the shore, but while I’m still in the middle of the hurricane.

These words are for mothers being hit by the tidal wave—cancer, suffering, uncertainty, or simply the heavy weight of loving small people while carrying overwhelming burdens.

My hope is simple: that you would know you are seen. That you are not alone. That when our hearts are tender, we can still find hope between the waves. And that when the waters rise, God meets us there.

Because when the waters rise, I have learned that we do not face them alone—Jesus is already there. And what He offers is, in my experience, exactly what I need to endure.

And He offers that to you, too…

Right here in the middle of your storm.