By Charlyn Elliott
For Breast Cancer Awareness month, I’m thrilled to introduce you to someone who puts the “special” into her title of special projects director on my staff. Charlyn Elliott is my secret weapon, my dear friend, and this week, she shares a personal breast cancer story that I know will encourage your heart.
It’s been 36 years and a lifetime ago.
October has long been a bittersweet month for me. As Breast Cancer Awareness month, it’s full of reminders to get mammograms, acknowledgements of life-giving medical advances, and celebrations of breast cancer survivors like Shaunti, and probably many of you.
Yet, October is also my reminder that not every earthly battle against breast cancer is won. Not everyone rings the bell when they complete chemo. Not everyone hears the words, “You are in remission.”
For readers of faith, this creates a push-pull in our faith, doesn’t it? We know we serve a God who deeply cares about us. And He also guarantees that in this world we will have trouble (John 16:33, italics mine).
In hopes of coming alongside you in these tricky waters, I’m sharing my story with the benefit of the long view. You see, back in 1980, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer—a battle she fought valiantly for eight years before passing away on October 21, 1988. For years, my wounded heart kept asking God, “why?”
It’s really okay to say, “this is hard and I don’t like it.” And yet He reminds us in John 13:7 (“You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.”) that we don’t always understand what He’s doing. It’s only later that we see. God has made this verse real to me in ways that could never be contained in a blog. But I’ve pulled three truths out of the hardest road imaginable in hopes that they will encourage your heart, too.
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