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I’m walking into surgery today… and I’m terrified.
The word “cancer” still feels strange on my tongue, like it belongs to someone else’s story, not mine. Not the story of a woman who has spent her life pouring coffee on the porch, chasing grandkids across the yard, and filling the kitchen with the smell of Sunday pot roast.
But here I am.
This morning I sat on the edge of the hospital bed, the thin gown crinkling under me, my bare feet cold against the linoleum floor. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I pressed them together in my lap and whispered the only prayer that would come:
“Lord, if this is my fight, please walk through it with me.”
The words felt small in that big, sterile room, but they were all I had.
The Little Things I’m Not Ready to Lose
Fear tried to swallow me whole right there in the pre-op room.
It came in waves, bringing with it flashes of everything I’m not ready to say goodbye to.
I thought about the way my husband, David, makes our morning coffee just the way I like it—two creams, one sugar—and how we sit together on the old porch swing, watching the neighborhood wake up. The creak of the chains, the steam rising from our mugs, the comfortable silence between two people who’ve loved each other for thirty-eight years.
I pictured my grandkids—little Emma with her wild curls and Jacob with his gap-toothed grin—running full speed to the door the moment my car pulls into the driveway. Their sticky hands reaching up, their voices calling “Nana!” like it’s the best word in the whole world.
And those Sunday dinners. The kitchen warm and loud with laughter, the table crowded with plates of pot roast, mashed potatoes, and green beans from the garden. The way the grandkids fight over who gets the last roll, and how David always sneaks me the crispy end piece because he knows it’s my favorite.
These are the ordinary miracles I’m not ready to lose.
Tears slipped down my cheeks as I sat there, the monitors beeping softly beside me. The fear felt so big, like a shadow that could block out every bit of light I’ve ever known.
A Prayer Whispered in the Cold
But then something deeper rose up inside me.
I closed my eyes right there in that cold pre-op room, the smell of antiseptic sharp in the air, the distant sound of nurses’ footsteps in the hallway. I breathed in slow, the way I used to teach my Sunday school class years ago when we talked about finding peace in the storm.
And in that moment, a peace I can’t explain settled over me.
It wasn’t because the road ahead suddenly looked easy. It wasn’t because I got some magical guarantee that everything would be okay. It was quieter than that. Gentler.
It was the kind of peace that comes when you remember you’re not walking this path alone.
I thought about all the times God had shown up before—in the waiting rooms of other heartaches, in the long nights when worry kept me awake, in the unexpected kindnesses that arrived exactly when I needed them most.
He had never left me then.
Why would He leave me now?
The Moments That Made Me Who I Am
As they prepared me for surgery, my mind kept drifting back to the life I’ve lived.
I remembered rocking my own babies in the middle of the night, whispering lullabies when exhaustion made my eyes heavy. I remembered holding David’s hand through his mother’s funeral, and him holding mine through my father’s long illness.
I remembered teaching my daughter how to make that same pot roast recipe, her little hands covered in flour as she proudly stirred the gravy. I remembered the first time my grandson called me “Nana” and how my heart nearly burst with a love so big it didn’t seem possible.
These memories weren’t just passing thoughts. They were anchors.
They reminded me that my life has been rich—not because it was perfect, but because it was full of love given and received, of ordinary days turned sacred by the people in them.
Cancer may be trying to steal tomorrow, but it can’t touch the yesterdays I’ve already lived.
It can’t erase the laughter that still echoes in my kitchen or the way my husband’s eyes still soften when he looks at me across the table.
When Fear Feels Bigger Than Faith
I know I’m not the only one who has sat in a moment like this.
Maybe you’re reading this from your own hospital bed, or from a chair in a waiting room while someone you love faces their battle. Maybe you’re at home, scrolling through your phone with worry heavy in your chest.
I understand.
Fear has a way of making everything feel bigger than it is. It whispers that the pain will be too much, that the road is too long, that the outcome is too uncertain.
It tried to tell me the same thing this morning.
But here’s what I’m choosing to believe, even as they wheel me back soon:
Healing is coming.
Maybe not the way I pictured it in my hopeful daydreams. Maybe not on my timeline. But in the way only God can give—sometimes through doctors’ hands, sometimes through quiet strength in the middle of the night, sometimes through the simple act of waking up one more morning to see the sunrise.
I’m choosing to hold onto that.
The Unexplainable Peace That Carried Me
As the nurse came in to check my IV one last time, she gave me a gentle smile and asked if I needed anything.
I told her I was okay.
And strangely… I was.
The shaking in my hands had slowed. The knot in my stomach had loosened just enough for me to breathe a little deeper.
It wasn’t courage I found on my own. It was peace that found me.
The kind of peace that passes understanding, the kind the Bible talks about when the world feels like it’s closing in. The kind that doesn’t remove the storm but lets you stand steady in the middle of it.
I thought about my family waiting just down the hall—David pacing quietly, my daughter trying to keep the grandkids distracted with coloring books. They’re scared too. I know they are. But we’ve decided to face this together, the way we’ve faced everything else.
One step. One prayer. One day at a time.
A Gentle Reminder for Anyone Facing the Unknown
If you’ve ever faced a moment where fear felt bigger than your faith, I understand completely.
You’re not alone today.
Whether you’re the one lying in the hospital bed or the one holding someone else’s hand through it, God sees you. He hears the whispers in the dark. He catches every tear that falls on a thin hospital pillow.
He walks with us through the hardest doors, into the unknown rooms, and out the other side—whatever that other side looks like.
Sometimes the healing comes as a miracle we can touch. Sometimes it comes as strength to keep going when the body grows weary. Sometimes it comes as peace that lets us say, “Not my will, but Yours.”
I don’t know what tomorrow will bring.
But I know Who walks with me into it.
And that makes all the difference.
Holding Onto the Light in the Shadow
As they prepare to wheel me back, I’m thinking about the little things again—not with fear this time, but with gratitude.
The porch swing that waits for us.
The sound of little feet running to the door.
The warmth of the kitchen filled with family and laughter.
Those things are worth fighting for.
They’re worth believing for.
And even if the fight looks different than I imagined, I’m choosing to trust that every moment I’ve been given has been a gift. Every hug, every laugh, every quiet morning coffee has already been more than enough.
I’m not walking into this surgery alone.
I never was.
The Lord is with me. My family is with me. And the prayers of so many—some I know, some I’ll never meet—are surrounding me like a soft blanket on a cold night.
A Quiet Hope for Whatever Comes Next
Whatever the outcome of today’s surgery, I want you to know this:
Life is made of these tender, ordinary moments. The ones we sometimes take for granted until they’re threatened.
Don’t wait for a hospital bed to remind you how precious they are.
Hold your people close.
Say the “I love you” that’s been sitting on your heart.
Make the pot roast on a random Tuesday just because.
Sit on the porch and watch the sunrise with someone you love.
And when fear comes knocking—and it will—whisper that simple prayer again:
“Lord, if this is my fight, please walk through it with me.”
He will.
He always does.
I’m choosing to believe healing is coming—in the way only God can give.
Whether it’s in this life or the next, peace is already here.
And I am not alone.
If this story touched your heart today, would you share it with someone who might be facing their own battle right now? A simple ❤️ lets me know I’m not alone in this either, and your comment might be the exact encouragement someone needs while they wait in their own pre-op room. You’re not alone, friend. We’re all walking each other home, one prayer at a time.