The time between a cancer diagnosis and starting treatment is gut-wrenching, shocking, scary, and heartbreaking. Usually, one’s first thought is, “This can’t be happening!” The second, “Will I survive?”
When my daughter received a cancer diagnosis in 2011, it was such a thunderbolt I thought there was some cosmic mistake. How could a 37-year-old, otherwise healthy mother of one with no family history be diagnosed with breast cancer? Yes, this is wrong.
However, within 24 hours, our normality was tossed aside like a twig in a wind storm. The diagnosis was correct, and my pleading with God began.
Every day for weeks, all I did was beg. I would take daily walks down the streets near my child’s home, repeating incessantly, “Please, please, God, please.”
Those days became cast in granite as the worst days of our family’s collective lives. Hours consumed with not knowing and having to learn. Those days of screaming, crying, and more begging. Days filled with complications, tests, multiple doctors, and more hand-holding.
The day that one must tell a six-year-old that her world is no longer pain-free. During those horrible times, you must watch the heartache unfold before your eyes as the reality of living and losing becomes almost unbearable.
I can’t tell you exactly when I had the dream, but it was one of those restless nights followed by one of those exhausting days.
The dream began with my struggle to climb a rocky, barren mountain. Each boulder was sharp and angled with jagged edges. I started to rise, desperately knowing I had to reach the summit.
I would turn a ridge scraping my knees and cutting my hands, but determined, I kept lifting myself toward the top.
Everything was gray — the sky, the rocks, the air. There was no sun, no rain, no clouds of white, no sign of life.
Finally, I could see the top of the mountain. I stopped on a large flat rock surface perched on all fours. I was again ready to climb but knew I could go no farther.
There he was, a towering figure dressed in gray looking upward toward the heavens of doom above him. He appeared to be the actual crest of the mountain as if he carved himself into the stone.
He was cradling a woman. Her arms dangled from her side, her long hair falling in damp gray strings toward the ground. He held my lifeless daughter while looking toward the gray sky as a tear ran down his cheek. I wanted to scream, yet, no sound came from my mouth.
I couldn’t retrieve her from the man, nor could I plead for her to be alive. All I could do was look to the gray God above me as he lifted her toward heaven. Then His eyes met mine.
Not a word was spoken between us, but I knew her soul was in His hands. She now belonged to Him. There was nothing I could do but start climbing back down into the green of the world below without her. When my feet touched the solid ground is when I awoke.
Perspiration soaked my nightgown. Tears were falling down my cheeks as I tried not to sob openly. I was shaking so violently that I thought I would wake my granddaughter lying beside me.
The following day the dream haunted me as I drank my coffee. With certainty, I can’t explain; I knew what the images meant and what God expected from me.
Courageously, I was to ask people to pray. I was to write about our experiences and share them. I was not to beg God but plead with others for prayer. I began calling on people I had not seen in years and emailing churches I had never visited.
I reached out to my old high school class, and they spread their prayers across the country along with my business clients, friends, and family.
There was no shame in asking everyone for prayers. The petitions for prayers spread, and hope and courage grew with them.
I began writing my thoughts and sharing them with others.
One morning while alone, it dawned on me what the rest of the dream meant. I realized that even though I bore my daughter, she was not mine, and she had always belonged to God, her Father.
All our children are gifts from God, and he loans them to us to love, raise, and teach. Not all children are born in perfect health, and many will not live to adulthood, but they are still His gifts. To trust God to know what He is doing with your child is faith beyond going to church.
The dream of climbing the rock mountain taught me to trust God no matter what happened.
I learned that I couldn’t control life, disease, or death. The only thing I could manage was my faith and obedience to God.
Heather’s cancer journey began eleven years ago, and she still thrives in the green below the mountain. I never stopped writing and soon became a journalist.
During those horrible days, I learned that there was only one person that could love my child more than her mother. He is the Father who wept on top of a rock mountain.
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Editor’s note: A shortened version of this article by Lynn Walker Gendusa first appeared in Guidepost magazine’s Mysterious Ways. Gendusa is now a regular columnist with Now Habersham. In recognition of Breast Cancer Awareness Month, we share this very personal story by Lynn in honor of her daughter, Heather, and the millions of women who have courageously faced and fought the disease. For information on resources available to help detect and treat breast cancer, visit Susan G. Komen or the American Cancer Society online.
