Beyond the Seen

By Dawn Cunningham

Facing one’s mortality is daunting, yet brings into sharp focus questions of life, death, and after life. Are you wondering if there is anything beyond our physical world? Are you wondering if any good can come of suffering? If so, you will want to read this inspiring story of a woman’s journey from skepticism to faith while living and even beyond. Facing multiple cancer treatments for two separate cancers, including one that is so rare only a handful of people are diagnosed worldwide, the author recounts her journey into recognizing a spiritual world that sustains. Join the author as she brings to life the blessings bestowed on her from when she first opened her heart to the possibility of the existence of a spiritual world that lies beyond the seen. Miraculously, not once but several times, the author’s cancers went into remission, returned, went into remission, returned, went into remission and so on. It was during these unchartered waters of uncertainty (am I living or dying?) that God met her in her doubts, fears and skepticism. It was during these times of uncertainty that He lavished His love, always with the focus on her spiritual growth. As her physical world constricts due to treatment and its side effects, her spiritual world expands and is enriched, bringing her peace in the uncertainty that once unsettled her. Told in a conversational style, you will spend an afternoon glimpsing into the unseen spiritual world and experience the overflowing of God’s unmerited grace.

Faith is the substance of things unseen, but during times of suffering, faith in an unseen God can seem practically impossible. In Beyond the Seen, Dawn graciously opens the window of her life and allows us to peek inside. What we find is a remarkably honest account of one woman’s journey to believe in a God who, though unseen, can be experienced in unimaginable ways – a God who sticks closer than a brother, who sustains us in all circumstances, and is worthy of our trust. I implore you to read Beyond the Seen. Your heart will thank you!

-Laura Seifert, Founder, Yes. Ministries

In this deeply personal journey, Dawn invites us into her most intimate experience that she refers to as “living while dying.” Facing multiple cancer treatments and remissions and now a cancer so rare that there are only a handful of people diagnosed worldwide, she faces uncharted treatment and dim prospects for cure. Her honesty regarding the torment of the cancer treatments, her concern for her family, and her wrestling with her faith is a gift to those facing desperate health situations, family and friends who stand by with a sense of helplessness, and caregivers who want to offer true help. Challenged by a doctor to “live large,” Dawn has not allowed her disease to restrict or define her. In one account she describes an afterlife experience. It gave her a perspective to see herself from above…that is where hope is found. Through all the uncertainty, disappointments, and suffering she gives us a perspective that cannot be found in research or theological books. It’s a story of faith live while living and even beyond.

-Bill Heston, D. Min

Beyond the Seen is a beautifully written journey of God’s pursuit towards us and His promises to remain with us in the midst of life’s struggles. Dawn gives a personal, raw and honest account of her walk with metastatic cancer and courageously demonstrates the importance of being honest with our emotions, questions, and doubts. Her reflections about her cancer journey leave us remembering God’s abundant grace and faithfulness to be with us in all circumstances.

-Lija Shah, Director, Caring Ministry, First Presbyterian Church Houston

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Sep 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664243231

Dawn Cunningham

Dawn Cunningham resides in Houston, Texas with her husband, Gary. Her life is full with her three adult children, their spouses, and her six grandchildren. Living with two metastatic Stage IV terminal cancers, she wrote Beyond the Seen while facing end of life decisions and praying for yet another miracle to extend her life.

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Copyright © 2021 Dawn Cunningham.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

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Bloomington, IN 47403

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Scripture quotations identified NKJV are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright © 1979, 1980, 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-6642-4322-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-4324-8 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-4323-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021917164

WestBow Press rev. date: 11/08/2021

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction

My Youth

Rejection of the Unseen World

Generosity of Spirit

Searching

That Nagging Promise

Be Bitter or Be a Blessing

Who Is This God?

A Vacation Cut Short

Life Back to Normal

Metastasis

SNUC

A String of Miracles

The Furnace That Changed My Perspective

Living Large with SNUC

SNUC Snuck into My Liver—December 2018

Job: A Glimpse into the Unseen

Slowing Heart, More Miracles

Remission

The Psalms

Why Does God Not Heal Everyone Who Asks?

And It Returns, Again

Taking the Risk

More Faith Struggles, More Miracles

Beyond Phase 1 Trials

Beyond Compassionate Care

Reflections

To my nephew Cooper, who is searching to know

what, if anything, lies beyond the seen

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I want to thank Bonnie Miller, for encouraging me to write this book; Sylvia Harris, for sitting with me on Zoom video calls those many hours while I recalled the memories this book includes; Laura Seifert, the founder of YES. Ministries, for asking me to share my cancer journey for the first time in public; and Imme Santee, whose counsel and insightful comments clarified my thoughts. I also want to thank Debbie Keffer. Your many emails, sharing your thoughts about the spiritual realm, inspired me to delve into my thoughts, seeking and striving beyond my comfort zone into the richness of the unseen. You each gave me the courage to tackle this project.

To all of you who have walked this journey with me (you know who you are), thank you for courageously stepping into my cancers, rather than running away. Your generosity—as expressed in countless visits, meals, prayers, caring for my children when they were young and seeing to it that the impact on their lives was minimized, grocery shopping, errand running, and many, many more acts of kindness too numerous to list—is beyond priceless.

I am grateful also for my cancer care team, for their constant care and concern, prayers, openness to explore research I brought to them, outside-the-box thinking, and willingness to seek out and try the unconventional.

Most importantly, I’d like to thank my family for walking this journey with me, with faith, humor, compassion, and love. Yes, it has been a roller coaster of emotions, but it has been full of joy and love because of you.

INTRODUCTION

You have cancer.

One always remembers the exact moment that news arrives. The sounds. The surroundings. The weather. Who was present. The time of day. For me, it happened not once but twice. Two separate cancers. Unrelated. Eighteen years apart. And many calls and doctor visits during these last twenty-two years to tell me one or the other of the cancers had spread, or that I was in complete remission, or that nothing remained to be done to prevent impending death.

Facing one’s mortality is daunting and actually determines the trajectory of one’s life. The meaning we make of death translates into the purposes we choose for our lives. Since the very beginning of time, we have looked at the skies and the twinkling stars and wondered what secrets they might hold. We have searched for ways to unravel the mysteries of our earth and the universe that contains it. We have tried to conquer the world that is hidden from our eyes, both in the skies beyond our vision and in the depths of the oceans. We humans have always sought to know, to understand, and to make sense of the world and our place in it. We have always had a sense that there is more than the eye can see. We want to know what lies beyond our five senses—the truths kept from our reach. We constantly search and strive for a world beyond ours. Just look at the temple ruins of ancient civilizations. I suspect we always want to know what we can only partly know.

Realizing all too well our mortality, we persist in seeing ourselves as eternal, denying the truth for as long as is humanly possible. Deep in our hearts, we know the reality of death—some of us have even seen it closely. Still, we hope that our lives will go on forever.

I have come to realize that the one true fear of all humanity, over all these years of existence, is the uncertainty of life, in general, and our lives, in particular. We have been searching for the origin since the dawn of time and are still nowhere near an answer. The ambiguity of our survival, as well as our final abode, makes the unknown appealing to our curious palates, heightens our inquisitive senses, and fuels our prying emotions.

I was always one who wanted certainty. I thought, wrongly, that it would give me comfort. I strained my eyes and frustrated my brain in an attempt to look far into the future, to see what I was never meant to see in the first place. In doing this, I missed out on living fully in the here and now, with the beauty of the moment often escaping me. It took me considerable time to come to terms with the fact that the only certainty in life is its uncertainty and that what I might characterize as a bad thing might actually be a good thing, a blessing in disguise.

Come to think of it, not knowing what we are not supposed to know is a blessing in disguise. The unpredictability of life will always haunt us if we keep feeding it our fears and insecurities. As we mature, we learn to trust the unfolding of life on life’s terms with less fear. We can notice all we have survived, even if we know it will all eventually end in death.

What had plagued my body and my soul and what I thought was an affliction turned out to be a blessing for me. Cancer caused me to look at life in an entirely new light, seeing what I had been blinded to previously. I realized that the continuity of our beings is not limited to this world, and I found the One ingredient that was missing from the recipe of my life.

During my journey, I found that it was a who, not a what, that made me whole, and that who was a God who is more interested in my spiritual growth than my plans and desire for certainty.

I began to see that our presence, which is negligible when compared to the vast expanse of the universe, is all the proof that I needed to believe in a being of a higher dimension, a creative intelligence that created our universe. Nothing can come out of nothing is the basic mantra of science, but in reality, it shakes the foundation of the very same discipline of which it is a fundamental part.

The big question was never, How did the big bang happen? It was, What existed before the big bang that initiated the process of cause and effect, which resulted in the creation of the universe and life as we know it? But I am not here to indulge in the never-ending debate on science and God.

My name is Dawn Cunningham, and I am a living, breathing testament to God’s love, unwavering faithfulness, and mercy, despite my denials, doubts, and resistance. I am here to share the Light that has guided me all these years and that continues to strengthen me. I am here to tell the story of the deep, challenging waters into which I was thrust and the unchartered territories I crossed. I have never shared my faith or my journey with anyone other than my family and friends. Writing this book is itself a huge leap of faith. It is something I have never done, and it makes me nervous. It is daunting to lay out my vulnerability to so many unknown persons. Yet this choice to share my life and experiences with absolute strangers is mine, and despite the anxiety it produces, it is a path from which I shall not flee, as it is my hope that my vulnerability will bless you. I hope that my journey will, in some small way, assist you in yours.

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MY YOUTH

I wasn’t always someone who believed in a god, in a higher power, or in anything, really, that was not tangible. Being a curious and intellectual kid, I was always asking, Why? How? My mom would answer me, Dawn, God gave you a brain; use it. It’s a sin not to.

How? I wondered. What would happen if I didn’t? Who was this God, anyway?

I was the oldest of two children, my sister being born a year after me. We were a Catholic churchgoing family during my early childhood in Springfield, Massachusetts. But it was rote. Every Friday, we ate only fish. Every Saturday was catechism. On Sunday, we would dress up, go to Mass, drive to my nana’s house for lunch, and have a fun day playing with her little chihuahua while the adults sat at the dining table and enjoyed the afternoon. Then we’d head home. I have fond memories of those Sundays. Laughter, family, warmth, and love. But I knew nothing of a higher power who sustains, comforts, and guides us.

Dawn1964.jpg

Dawn, Sunday best

I spent my adolescent years in a small town in Upstate New York. I was involved in school, friends, competitive swimming, and skiing. My father was very domineering and autocratic. There was alcohol in abundance. My father drank beer all day, and my mother drank frozen whiskey sours. He raged often, and I was usually the object of that rage. My mother was fearful and silent.

From the time I was very young, my father had made it clear to me that I was unacceptable to him. My birth, according to him, had caused him to drop out of engineering school at the University of Massachusetts, and my being an A+ student only reignited his long-simmering yet unfounded resentment. In my senior year of high school, I ran out of high school classes to take and was generally an irritant to