From Sickness to Light: How God Used Healing My Cancer to Heal My Soul

By Christina A. McDaniel

Finding herself in a terrifying reality of a cancer diagnosis, Christina found her only hope for guidance and healing would be to fully put her trust in God. As he took control of how her treatment plan would go, he also took control of her mental and spiritual well-being, healing her in ways she never knew she could heal.

She would use writing to clear her mind of anxiety and try to get much needed rest, but she would ultimately find that through her writing, he was guiding her and teaching her. She knew she would not come out of this the same person she went in, and she used that excitement to motivate her and keep her focused on God's work in her.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798889435259

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From Sickness to Light

How God Used Healing My Cancer to Heal My Soul

Christina A. McDaniel

ISBN 979-8-88943-524-2 (paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88943-525-9 (digital)

Copyright © 2023 by Christina A. McDaniel

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing

832 Park Avenue

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

Let's Begin

Chapter 2

My Diagnosis

Chapter 3

Releasing Control

Chapter 4

My Faith So Far

Chapter 5

Moving People in My Life

Chapter 6

Grounded in Grace

Chapter 7

My Favorite Place Is Home

Chapter 8

Faith under Attack

Chapter 9

Holding On

Chapter 10

Fear Not

Chapter 11

God's Perfect Timing

Chapter 12

Worshipping

Chapter 13

Treatment

Chapter 14

Be Still

Chapter 15

Bad Days

Chapter 16

It's a Balancing Act

Chapter 17

Forgiveness

Chapter 18

Be Aware

Chapter 19

Moving Forward

Epilogue

About the Author

To my motivators, my husband and three children

You are, have always been, and will always be my everything.

My love for you is and will always be unconditional.

I pray for my children that whenever you may find yourselves in a dark place that you remember God is your light; just as he guided your mom through her darkest times, he will guide and protect you as well.

I love you.

Thank You

Thank you, Lord, for protecting me and teaching me as I go through this journey. For changing me and making me better and stronger, physically and spiritually. Thank you most importantly, Lord, for your continued forgiveness, love, and grace as I stumble down this path called life.

In the beginning, I prayed for favor as I went through my treatment and healing, and God sent his angel army to answer that prayer. So thank you to my husband, children, and family for showing me support and love and reminding me that no one in this family fights alone.

And thank you to the staff at the Interventionalist Radiology department at Deaconess Medical Center, where I visited multiple times for all my procedures. Every time I visited you, I was scared and anxious, and every time, you showed me kindness and patience and allowed me to have some peace during those uncomfortable procedures.

Introduction

I would never have imagined that I would be diagnosed with cancer, especially at thirty-nine years old. I fear many things, oh so many things—injuries, car wrecks, things that can explode, my children being hurt; this list goes on and on. To call myself a worrywart would be downplaying the level of anxiety I tend to carry around. But illness was never really something I feared, at least not for myself and definitely not now. It all felt so surreal, and it was almost as though I was watching someone else's life play out because I just couldn't grasp that this was happening to me.

I would most definitely never think that cancer would be the thing that saves me and leads me down a path of spiritual healing and strengthening that I could have never imagined prior to becoming ill. Through this illness, I am finding myself, and I am finding God in a way I don't know that I ever would have had I not ended up in such a vulnerable state of mind. In the beginning, I thought that I would learn to trust God more and strengthen my faith, and I did, but it went far beyond that as well.

God didn't make me sick, but, man, would he take this dark, scary, uncomfortable time and use it to lift me spiritually higher than I could have ever imagined. So much would start to make sense, and so many chains would be broken. I would feel lighter and more free and just overall different, amazingly and gratefully different.

My initial plan for this writing was to get thoughts out of my head to allow me to hopefully calm my mind. The more I wrote and the more my mind quieted, the more I heard and saw God directing me to write with the intention of creating a book to share with whomever he led to read it. I repeatedly came back to chapters I had started and added to them as I continued to learn. I did my best to stay organized and not be all over the place. Each chapter is a lesson I would find myself in, and they are in the order that I was learning them. The reason I would return and add to them is because as new lessons came, prior lessons made more sense and grew and strengthened. I had so much going on during this time of my life that there were times I would revisit a chapter and barely remember typing it. As I read through it, I would gain new perception on what God was showing me during the time I wrote it. Being constantly open to Gods teachings allowed for this to happen because he was continuously teaching me.

I pray that this book reaches whoever needs to read it. I pray that anyone reading my testimony will find the light in their dark situation. I pray that the fear of the unknown will be lifted and that you will find a childlike excitement of the unknown and even look forward to it. And if you are not currently going through a dark time, I pray that it sets you up and armors you for if and when one may come. I pray that chains are broken for you as they have been for me and that you are both spiritually and physically healed in Jesus's name. Amen.

Chapter 1

Let's Begin

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

—Matthew 11:28

This last summer, I would sit and try to think of things my family and I could do to bring some excitement to our days. Many ideas would come to mind: camping, lake days, walks, hikes, go find a waterfall, a stream to walk in, maybe a water park even. We had the money; we had the time, but what I did not have was the energy. I had the mental energy, but the thought of getting up and arranging and packing and then driving would put me down for a nap. Even hanging out in the backyard was too much. Was it the heat? I love the heat though, and my backyard is one of my favorite places to be. The tiredness I felt seemed to spread to my family like it was contagious. We have an eighteen-foot round above ground pool that I would look at and think about getting into but changing and then climbing the ladder (all three steps) and actually getting in seemed more of a task than the pleasure would be worth. Even the little kids seemed to have less interest than normal with the pool.

Every morning, I would go out and remove the bugs that collected on the top overnight and make sure the water was clean and clear, just in case they decided to get in. By August, I realized the chances were slim, but I kept doing it anyways, just in case. Normally, in the summer, we have a good amount of BBQs with roughly twenty family members and friends over for each. I would say between mine and my older sister's house, we do a BBQ at least every other weekend. This year, I think we did one for my daughter and her boyfriend's birthday at our house. Between the two houses, we had maybe three, and they all ended respectively early. Even that was off as we normally can go late, especially my husband, nephews, and brother in-law. It was like everyone just didn't have the energy this year. Something was off. I had a couple of conversations about this with two of my sisters, and between the three of us, we decided something was coming; we just weren't sure what.

My life has shown me in the past that when it gets quiet or uneventful, it means I need to rest. This does not happen often with my family, rest that is, and I don't mean that in a negative way. Aside from the battles we have fought within our home and in the lives of the five of us, we have the rest of us. I have a very large family, and I consider us very close. Even for the family members we do not see on a daily or weekly basis, we still have a closeness that we all know when the time comes and the need is there, we can rely on each other. I counted just now and just within city limits and a few miles out, there are thirty-two of us, and our city is only about three to four miles long. Go even a couple more miles out, and that number quickly grows. I love it, and if I had it my way, we would all be together more often. I used to tell my kids they didn't need friends because they had plenty of cousins, and cousins make the best of friends. With so many of us, we have gone through a lot and faced many struggles. Cancer, at least for a family member as young as me, has not been one of them. Is this why we were tired and uneventful all summer? Were we unknowingly being prepared for what was to come at the end of summer?

I am still carrying that tiredness, and we are almost to the winter season. I am not a cold weather person, so I am not longing for any outside activities by any means. But I am still tired and now a bit weaker, okay, much weaker if I am being honest. I am twenty pounds down and working on trying to build my muscle back, which is hard due to my physical limitations right now. Normally, I can build muscle and tone up quickly. This is different. I do my normal workouts just a little slower to avoid overworking my lungs, no cardio just toning. But it has not made a difference that I can see or feel. Losing weight can be good, and I was a couple pounds over based on my height according to some weight guide I read in the past. But I don't like it. It happened fast and not on purpose, and I am uncomfortable. A good numbers of my clothes do not fit right now; that isn't actually a big deal because I am currently living my best life as far as only having to put on sweats and T-shirt or hoodie every day since I am also on medical leave.

It is also frustrating not having my strength and not being able to do little tasks that I normally can. I am not one to spend a lot of time sitting. I am currently working on recognizing the Sabbath and must continuously remind myself of that as I have a cleaning or organizing idea pop up in my mind and go to jump up and do it. These things are mentally restful for me, yard work as well; I find a lot of peace in doing yard work and gardening. Physical rest is something I haven't needed to make a point of much in the past. If I felt tired, a ten-minute power nap is all I needed to get going again. We have been getting a good amount of snow, and my husband has been out shoveling and snow blowing. I would love to get out and do some shoveling myself that I enjoy as well sometimes. But between my lack of strength, energy, and currently working with one good lung, I just can't.

Some days, I wake up feeling good, and I get excited, and so I clean. I have nothing else really to spend my energy on, being limited on public exposure and pushing broke at this point with my leave pay not being what I am used to bringing in. Thankfully, I discovered the therapeutic benefits of writing and reading. I can at least get out my mental energy and give my brain a good exercise, and I am feeling the benefits of that as my spiritual strength grows. When I am writing, I feel like I am spending time with God. I think that is because he led me to write, and I am writing about what he is teaching me through this current trial. I read books based on faith and spiritual growth as well, so again, they bring me closer to God. I figure this is right where he wants me, and I need to listen and follow his lead.

I have a ton of time to rest now, physically that is. Mentally, I have been struggling to rest, and writing has been a good way for me get my thoughts out and to also work through all these thoughts that have been spinning around as I am reflecting and focusing on what he is teaching me though this. I have spent many nights unable to fall asleep because of all the thoughts spinning around that I cannot seem to quiet. Normally, I have no issues with sleep; about the time my head hits the pillow, I am generally dozing off. So I am learning to deal with this new struggle, and the best solution I have found is to get the thoughts out and write them down. Even if I do nothing with what I write but throw it away, it provides me with some relief.

I was not at a good point in some parts of my life before now. Sounds backward but finding out I have cancer has led to parts of me healing that I was not sure of how to heal, not the physical sick parts but my spiritual, emotional, and mental parts. I was very uncomfortable, and I knew I needed a change, a big change, or I was not going to be okay. I wasn't going to make the change; the fear of