SPEAKER_02: 0:21

My initial thought when I was diagnosed is this is a punishment for for for the way I've been living. And so I remember praying that night, like, you know, I I'll stop sinning, I'll I'll read my Bible, uh, just you know, just don't let this take me take my life.

SPEAKER_01: 0:40

Welcome to Religion Sucks, a podcast where we talk about what it's like to have a real relationship with God. My name is Rich, and I'm here with my co-host Kirsten. Today our guest is Garrett Reimer. Garrett was 15 years old and a freshman in high school when he was diagnosed with a rare form of spinal cord cancer. Faced with a nine-hour surgery, months of treatment, in an uncertain future, he discovered what faith actually looks like when religion stops working, and you need God to be real. Garrett's story challenges every easy answer we give about suffering, and it shows us what happens when everything else gets stripped away. So Garrett joins us to talk about what he lost and what he gained through his cancer journey and where he's headed now.

SPEAKER_00: 1:30

Welcome, Garrett. Thanks for being on the show.

SPEAKER_02: 1:33

Thanks for having me. It's an honor to be here. I'm glad we could uh finally find a time to sit down and record this.

SPEAKER_00: 1:40

Yeah. Well, we always start by asking people the same question. Yep. What is your earliest memory of God or your earliest experience with religion?

SPEAKER_02: 1:50

Yeah. Um, it's hard to pinpoint. I have been going to church uh my whole life. And so um I I think to a degree he's kind of been present for as long as I have memory. Um but if I were to pinpoint one specific time, it would probably be at Camp Idrahaji, which I think you've been to.

SPEAKER_01: 2:10

And what does Idrahaji stand for?

SPEAKER_02: 2:13

Idrahaji stands for, yes. Uh it stands for I'd rather have Jesus. Um and it's a it's a Christian summer camp uh here in Colorado. And I was probably goodness, eight years old when this happened. And it was at their, I think it used to be called Teepee Camp, but now it is Wilderness Ridge. And it was just the first time, at least in my memory, that I had been presented with the gospel in a way that an eight-year-old could digest it. Um and that was also the first time that I at least said the words of making a profession of faith in Christ. Looking back, I think I was probably just too young to grasp what that meant. Um, but I I would say that is the moment that I can pinpoint where I would say that my faith journey started.

SPEAKER_01: 3:05

Nice. Yeah. So it wasn't enough to give up cigarettes and and drinking. Well, no, but uh that was that came later. Yeah. Just kidding. That's great.

SPEAKER_00: 3:15

Well, if you don't mind, tell us a little bit of your story. Maybe give us just a kind of a brief overview of your childhood from 30,000 feet. What was life like for you growing up?

SPEAKER_02: 3:30

Totally. Um well, yeah. Rolling it all the way back to I I was born in Salt Lake City, um, Utah. That was where I was born. Um, no, I am not Mormon. Never was, um, but I moved here to Colorado when I was six. Um, and we continued to attend church. I would go to Sunday school. Um, and that was, you know, at that age more of a daycare than it was, you know, spiritually um enriching. Um, but I yeah, you know, grew up going to church, um, fairly normal, fairly normal childhood. Um, you know, went through public schools and um kind of got into um just really heavily into academics and um, you know, played a few sports through elementary school and middle school, you know, as much as an elementary schooler and a middle schooler can be invested in any one thing. Um, and then really where um my faith started to be challenged um was in my freshman year. And that actually, I guess I will backpedal to eighth grade a little bit. Um, and I would bike to school a lot in eighth grade. Um, it was actually faster than driving because of the traffic. And in May of my eighth grade year, I was just biking to school as I normally did, and it had rained the previous night, so the roads were a little slick, and I came around a corner too fast, and my tires came out from underneath me, and I broke my right um humerus, so the upper, the upper portion of your right arm. And not a funny bone. Not a funny bone, and especially not when it's broken. Um, so my mom came and scooped me up and took me to the ER, and they put me into what was I think they call it a hanging cast, and I was just in a cast for three weeks. Um, that I didn't even have to have surgery. It was um fairly straightforward. And then when I came out of that cast, my arm was unsurprisingly weak from not having used it for three weeks. Um, the bone had healed just fine. They took another x-ray and that looked good. Um, and then I started physical therapy to start um, you know, regenerating that strength that I had lost when um my arm was, you know, not being used in the cast. And that physical therapy continued for about a month or two, and we just weren't seeing any progress um with my right arm. I again, the bone had healed just fine, but I couldn't regain that muscle strength. I couldn't lift my right arm um above my head. And my physical therapist was really confused about this. He said, it's been two months, you should have healed by now. And so he referred me back to those physicians that I saw the day of the crash, and they were also very confused about what was going on. So they ordered just a whole slew of medical tests, um, and it ended up dragging out about goodness, five or so months of MRIs to see if my rotator cuff was torn and um different physical exams. And it ended up culminating with this test called an EMG electromyograph. It was not a fun test. It involves um these shocks and these needles to basically test the function of your nerves in my, in my case, in my right arm and shoulder. And what they found is that I actually had nerve damage that was preventing my arm from healing, and that's why those muscles weren't growing back. Um, and they pinpointed with with that test that the nerve damage was in my neck. Um, so we were all very confused about that. I ended up going to um children's hospital for an MRI about a month later. So by now it was December of the same year. Um, so a pretty good amount of time has passed. And in that MRI, I was actually diagnosed with um with cancer. They found a tumor in my spinal cord that was actually blocking those nerve signals from getting from my brain to my spinal cord. Um the specific diagnosis was called pilocytic astrocytoma, um, and that was yeah, December 23rd of 2021. So I was 15 years old. Um, and that unsurprisingly rocked my world. Um spinal cord cancer is a very rare cancer. Um, it is dangerous to operate on, and obviously there's just not a lot of flexibility in that part of the body, a lot of really um crucial nerves that innervate your heart and your lungs and all of your organs and really everything south of the uh of the neck. And so that was um a very shocking diagnosis. We were not at all um expecting that. Do you remember what you were what what the feelings you were uh experiencing? Um I I mean had a lot of a lot of feelings running through my head. Um I think the the first emotion was just shock. Um I think up until that point I had just assumed maybe I hadn't been doing my physical therapy exercises enough and that that was really all it was. Um and so none of us were expecting um a diagnosis as severe as cancer. And of course, um a lot of this turned into questions, you know, approaching God with where is this coming from? Why why would you allow this to happen? Um and I'm you know, I'm sure we'll get into more um of that conversation. Um, but yeah, initially just shocked at this is really a serious and life-threatening um diagnosis. And there were so many questions we were grappling with about where do we go forward from this? Are we gonna do chemotherapy? Is there gonna be surgery involved? You know, what does my outcome look like? Um, is my life in jeopardy? So um very, very serious questions to be grappling with.

SPEAKER_01: 9:22

I would say. I mean, most 15-year-olds are worried about getting their driver's license or or making varsity. You were just told you might die.

SPEAKER_02: 9:30

Seriously, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 9:31

So what happened next then? I mean, what uh what what path did you go down for for treatment?

SPEAKER_02: 9:37

Yeah. So from a medical standpoint, um, they the first line of treatment that they wanted to take was surgery, and they wanted their best neurosurgeon um on the case because the spinal cord is just such a dangerous area to operate. There's not a lot of room to to work with, and if you snip the wrong nerve, that could be the one that innervated your heart or your lungs. So um we also explored a couple different other cancer centers and ultimately decided to stay here in Colorado with Children's Hospital because they seemed very um comfortable um uh you know doing this procedure, very um well trained, and they're a pretty renowned cancer center. So we ended up staying here. Um my surgery was actually three weeks after my diagnosis, that was the soonest availability they had to do the operation. And we knew the risk the risks of the surgery going into it. Um there was a very real chance that I could have um vocal paralysis, um, that even um though unlikely that I could not wake up from that surgery. And so that, you know, just preparing for that um for that surgery mentally was um a really difficult time, especially having three weeks um to grapple with that.

SPEAKER_00: 10:51

Um Yeah, what I mean you were only 15, but what did that look like for you? How do you how do you process that as a 15-year-old?

SPEAKER_02: 10:59

I think uh part of it was delayed because we were waiting until um I we got results back from another MRI to see if my um if the cancer had spread to my brain, and thankfully it had not. Um and so part of it was just waiting to see what would happen if they were gonna operate. And so for a couple of those weeks I I uh it was just completely um not knowing what was on the other side of that curtain and um kind of whether I wanted to or not, just trusting um the Lord with it, um which was really a first time, uh the first time that I'd experienced that in my life. Um and then also just thinking about um a lot of the relationships in my life, and um ultimately the night before that surgery, I did have to reach out to a lot of people and say, hey, I don't know what's gonna um happen with the surgery and what um you know what things are gonna look like on the other side. Um but I just you know had to have that conversation with them about I'm grateful for our relationship and um you know, whether that's grandparents, family, friends, um, and and just also telling um a lot of the friends and um extended family in my life what was going on. And um that was a very intimidating conversation to have with somebody.

SPEAKER_00: 12:18

What were people's responses like?

SPEAKER_02: 12:21

Oh, very I mean, they varied drastically. Um I I had, you know, um I would say the most common one is just, you know, I'm sorry, I'm shocked. Um nobody very, you know, nobody expected it. Um I had a lot of close friends just really come around me during that time. Um it was around around that time that I was getting plugged in with Calvary Church uh in Inglewood, and they really came around me as a church and supported me. And um and then I had other people who just didn't know how to respond. I mean, it's it's a very difficult thing, especially as a 15-year-old or as a friend of a 15-year-old, to know how to respond to. And so I had people who would just distance themselves because um they didn't want to say the wrong thing, and so it was easier to say nothing at all. And I don't fault them for that. You know, it's it's extremely difficult to know how to lovingly respond to that kind of news as an adult, much less as a middle schooler or a high schooler.

SPEAKER_01: 13:19

You're sitting on the case.

SPEAKER_02: 13:20

Yes, I did survive the surgery.

SPEAKER_01: 13:22

You survived the surgery.

SPEAKER_02: 13:23

Um and not not without some misfortune. It was um I I actually lost 90% of all neurological function in that surgery based on their monitoring equipment. And then I spent another three weeks in the hospital.

SPEAKER_01: 13:36

In what part of your body?

SPEAKER_02: 13:37

Uh just throughout my body. Just throughout your body. They they have what's called like a neuromonitoring system um in surgery to make sure that they are not causing permanent damage, and they pushed it to the very edge of what they can do without causing permanent damage, and they did a great job. Um, they they definitely caused some short-term loss of function, loss of sensation. Um, but over the the following three weeks that I spent in the hospital, I made a full recovery. Um, I did have to learn to walk again. I waited about a week to regain sensation in my feet, which was just a very unexpected and difficult um experience, nothing I ever thought I would walk through. Um but I had some really amazing people taking care of me at the hospital. I had dozens of letters and cards um from people in the church, from friends and family who um yeah, sent sent cards and gifts that were literally covering the um wall of my hospital room from floor to ceiling. Um, and so that was just wildly encouraging to have um just that group of people come around me.

SPEAKER_00: 14:46

So, okay, so you have this very long intense surgery, and then you're in the hospital for f three weeks. They release you, you go home, what happens then?

SPEAKER_02: 14:57

Yeah, so I guess I didn't even say they were not able to fully resect the tumor and surgery. It was um very ingrained, for the lack of a better word, into the spinal cord, into the fibers, the nerve fibers. And so they resected what they could um safely, and then they left the remainder of it to be treated with chemotherapy. Um, so I had about a week to, or a week, a month to recover from um from the initial surgery, and then they started me on a clinical trial for a new kind of chemotherapy that was actually just a pill I took um twice a day. It still had a lot of the same side effects as chemotherapy, um, you know, as we think about um different changes with hair, um, nausea, weight loss, that kind of thing. Um, but I did that for a year and it actually was able to successfully shrink the tumor, which is not something that we always see with cancers. Typically, they just kind of scar over and become dormant. So that was just extremely, extremely relieving to see that um effective of a response. And then for the remainder of my time on treatment, it just remained dormant, which is exactly what they want to see. And they actually pulled me off of treatment a year early. I was supposed to do two years of chemotherapy, um, but after one year they had seen an effective enough response that they pulled me off. And that actually allowed me to have some surgeries in my right arm to repair um a lot of the nerve function that was blocked by that tumor. Um, and so I was really blessed to have just a fantastic prognosis. Um, the only really lasting side effect that I have is still a little weakness in my right arm. I still can't lift it above my head. Um but I said at the beginning of all this that if a weak arm is the only thing that I really uh walk away from from spinal cord cancer with, I got off really easy.

SPEAKER_00: 16:43

So that year that you were on chemo, I imagine your life didn't look like a normal teenager's life, right? What did what did cancer take from you that year?

SPEAKER_02: 16:55

Yeah. Um that's a great question. I was incredibly stubborn. Um, I had already missed about three months of school, and so I didn't want it affecting my grades. I wanted to get back to normal. I had all these super exciting uh adventures planned through the summer um that were with the scouting troop that I was in, and I did not want cancer to get in the way of any of that. And so um it ended up being a huge lesson for me in asking for help. Uh I was very, like I said, stubborn and not wanting to um accept help from other people, but at the same time, I still wanted to do these things, whether it was finishing all of my makeup work for the semester or um, you know, going on these really uh epic adventures with the scouts. And so uh it ended up being a big lesson in just letting go of my pride and letting um all these people, especially from the church, uh kind of come around me and support me and allow me to still do these adventures. Um, you know, what my best friend um Jack actually would, you know, help carry my pack even on these adventures. And um I was simultaneously getting really plugged in with the youth group at this church and and learning a lot about uh what it meant to um surrender this whole story to Christ and um kind of walk closer with him um during this um you know, all of these these questions that I was asking. You know, I I did come to the youth group as I was starting chemotherapy with a lot of questions um that I had about you know why this was happening, um, you know, how do I get through this? And the leaders, as well as just my my friends in the youth group, totally came around me and not only um just supporting me with you know physical needs, um, but also um discipling me and um you know spiritually leading me through this. And so that was just a really um great um support network to have um while I was on chemotherapy.

SPEAKER_00: 19:13

What part of that year was the hardest for you? Because I imagine there's different levels. There's the physical suffering, but then there's the emotional toll, social, there's you know, there's a lot happening.

SPEAKER_01: 19:25

Was it being a blonde? A blonde. Yeah, chemotherapy maybe. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 19:34

You know, what do you have against blondes?

SPEAKER_02: 19:36

Oh I would say the hardest part of the whole journey for me was the lifelong um diagnoses. Like I could manage okay with learning that um you know I would have to learn to walk again or go through a surgery and a recovery for that if it was. A short-term loss. But hearing that, you know, my right arm would probably never recover or that the tumor would always be with me, that it would never fully go away, those were some of the really difficult ones to grasp because it wasn't like, you know, I could do a certain number of, you know, physical therapy exercises or um, you know, a certain treatment or a surgery to get over that. You know, that was actually something that was going to stick with me for the rest of my life. And instead of getting past it, it was actually something that I was going to have to learn to adapt um to having.

SPEAKER_00: 20:40

Something completely out of your control. Yeah. Which I imagine knowing knowing you as well as we do with it, that would be hard.

SPEAKER_02: 20:48

It was so difficult. Um, I think, you know, getting to a deeper level of it, that it was very difficult to surrender those aspects of my life that I was trying to control through cancer. Um, and there was a lot of, you know, still wanting to have control over my grades and control over, you know, the activities that I was being um a part of, and control over um, you know, friendships that I lost um because of cancer and just learning to let go of those um and surrender those to the Lord was an ongoing process that I am so grateful for a lot of the people who kind of came around me and discipled me during that time who showed me what that looks like in day-to-day life.

SPEAKER_01: 21:37

Well, a lot of people have to hit rock bottom before they really turn to God and and surrender control and all that stuff. Um, before all this hit, um, do you mind sharing where you were at with God? And, you know, were you just kind of going through the motions? Was there something real there? Um, did it change um, you know, during this experience?

SPEAKER_02: 21:57

Yeah, I mean, absolutely. Um, I I look back at faith before cancer, and I the the word that I would use is sick. I was spiritually very sick. Um, I had my identity wrapped up in things that were not in Christ, that were uh in this world, whether that was, you know, how well I was doing in school or whether I had a date to homecoming or um, you know, the the the friendships that I had. Um and so, and on top of that, you know, I had made habits of just habitual sinful behavior. Um, I had a lot of really broken, broken relationships within my family. Um, and so I and frankly, I just didn't really desire a relationship with Christ. I didn't desire to read the word. I didn't desire to spend time with God in prayer. And so it was absolutely just going through the motions of, yeah, I'm gonna go to church with my family on Sunday because that's what we do. And, you know, I'll you know, I'll hear hear the words that are said and then kind of just go about my week.

SPEAKER_00: 23:04

Like most 15-year-olds, probably, honestly.

SPEAKER_02: 23:07

Like a lot of 50, like a lot of 55-year-olds, yeah. Not that I'm expecting my freshman year of high school to be, you know, exactly a time of spiritual maturity. Um, but yeah, uh, you know, I I would say that I just didn't desire um a relationship with Christ um during that time. And, you know, you were talking about how um hating rock bottom and and suffering and experiencing these difficult circumstances is um almost a catalyst for faith. And that was absolutely the case in my case. Um and I think it's a an important question to wrestle with. I think in the wake of cancer, it's something that I've wrestled with a lot, just this question of why God allows us to go through suffering. And and it's interestingly enough, throughout the past few months of my life, it's also a question I've had a lot of conversations with about um with non-believers who are also asking. I think it's a really big barrier to faith. They don't um it's difficult to come to terms with this reality of how does a loving God allow suffering? Uh, and I think that can be a big barrier for people to approach faith. And I can uh I've seen a lot of cases where it's also um a catalyst for people to to really struggle with faith and to um and to come to God with these questions. And so it's absolutely uh a question that I have grappled with greatly, um, both for my own sake and my own relationship with God, and also being to able to um extend that conversation to um other people who are who are also wrestling with the same question.

SPEAKER_00: 24:51

This may seem like a weird question, but during you know, the recovery, the chemo, that whole year. What was your prayer life like? Because I can imagine, you know, most 14, 15-year-olds. We don't have much of a prayer life, probably.

SPEAKER_01: 25:12

They treat God like a vending machine.

SPEAKER_00: 25:14

Right, right. But did you find yourself talking to God? Even if it was just to question him or Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 25:24

I think when I was originally diagnosed, I I think there's sorry, I have a lot of thoughts on this. Yeah, yeah, right. Um I think there's these three reasons that we got kind of go through the progression of giving um for why God allows suffering. And I think the first one that that I experienced and that I I see a lot, even in the Bible, is when we experience suffering, we want to um we we look at that as almost a punishment for our sins, whether that's past sins or current sins. Um, and that was that was my response. Um, and I you you see it in the Bible too. I was um looking at John 9. Um, when the disciples respond to when when they come upon this blind man, they ask Jesus, Rabbi, who sinned? Was it the man or his parents that he was born blind? And so that was my own response was you know, I I knew through going to church what um the what a Christian life was, you know, commanded to look like. And I knew that that's not that did not align with my life at all. Um and and that I hadn't even been desiring it. And so my initial thought when I was diagnosed is this is a punishment for for for the way I've been living. And so I remember praying. It was so heavy. Um, and I remember praying it perhaps in some amount of naivety that night, like, God, you know, I I'll stop sinning, I'll I'll read my Bible, um, just you know, just don't let this take me, take my life. Um and and frankly, that's that's not a prayer that I had, you know, within my own power. That's not a promise that I had the power to keep. So I I think that was kind of initially my my prayer in response to cancers, God, you know, I'll change, but don't don't let this take my life. And it was pleading with the Lord. Uh, and that also morphed into questions of, God, why would you allow this to happen? Wondering what why the Lord was allowing me to experience this. Um, and with that, God showed me with time that approaching suffering as punishment for sin is not, you know, it's a patently false way of thinking about suffering. Um, and and that's what Jesus' response to the disciples was in John 9, he says, it was not that this man sinned or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. Um, and we also see it in Jeremiah 31, for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will remember no more. Like, God, you know, how can God punish us for sin that he has promised not to remember? Um it was during this time that I was writing, okay, suffering isn't, you know, punishment for for my sin. Um Jesus took all of that on the cross and and he took it upon himself and he paid the price in full. And so God allowing me to experience the suffering is not me paying the price. I couldn't pay that price. Um, and so now I'm grappling with, okay, if it's not that, what is it? And I think that's when I really started towards looking at the future and silver linings and this idea that God uses suffering to make us more like him and um, you know, kind of a steel hardened by the flames of the forge scenario. Um, and I think when this is our mindset, you know, we look back on our suffering that we experienced and we see the ways that he strengthened us through it, we see the good that came out of it, and that's when we start to call it a blessing. And I do believe, like 100%, that God uses suffering as an avenue to make us more um like, you know, to transform us into the image of Christ. I 100% believe that. And the more that I thought about it, the more that I realized that is half of it, but it's not that's not the picture of joy in suffering that we see, you know, in First Peter, what does it say? Um rejoicing insofar as you share in Christ's suffering, not afterwards. Um, and so I really wanted to get to the bottom of okay, how do I have joy amid suffering instead of looking at the blessings that come after it, you know, later in life. And so I just continued to wrestle with this, and um, that also started to bring out some additional questions of, you know, what if there isn't a happy ending? What um what about the cases where, yeah, you know, if somebody doesn't survive cancer and they don't have the opportunity to see the blessings that came out of it? Or even bigger scale when um missionaries or groups of faith, you know, faith groups are persecuted to the point of death, you know, where can you find the the silver lining in that? Um and so that really forced me to wrestle with okay, what is happening in the moment that allows me to experience this joy amidst suffering that Peter's talking about.

SPEAKER_00: 30:40

And what did you come up with?

SPEAKER_02: 30:42

Um I wanted to know. I don't I can't say that I have you know a full and complete answer, but the what I came to is that suffering, it trains us to surrender our pride and just lean on Christ. And of all the things that could have kind of made this click for me, it was actually a Mumford and sung song lyric. Um I don't know if you know the song Surrender, um, but there's a there's a lyric in that song where he says, Um, defeat and surrender always seem the the same to me, but what does it matter? They both bring me to my knees.

SPEAKER_00: 31:17

Oh, that's so good.

SPEAKER_02: 31:18

And that had me thinking about okay, what what does it mean to be defeated and to surrender? And I think we use those terms a lot referencing war, where defeat is this idea of you're so deprived of the ability to fight that you are forced to relinquish authority. Um, whereas surrender is this idea where you see your imminent um defeat coming and you preemptively relinquish authority.

SPEAKER_00: 31:47

You've it's voluntary.

SPEAKER_02: 31:48

Yeah. Um and the reason that it was important for me to see these um and to grapple with the definitions of surrender and defeat is because God was showing me that we are actively engaged in spiritual warfare. Um Ephesians 6 says, For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over the present darkness, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places. So, in other words, we have a very real enemy in the person of Satan, who does nothing or who wants nothing more than to separate us from the love of Christ, and who we are actively engaged in war with daily. Um, and when we surrender to Christ, and this is exactly what I was experiencing through this, was and when we relinquish authority over to him, um, 1 Corinthians 15 tells us that we already have the victory, that this war that we're engaged in, he has already won. And so this had me thinking a lot about okay, what does suffering do here? What is the what is the role that suffering plays in this? And I realized that suffering, at least in the case of cancer for me, it had placed me in this place of spiritual defeat. It completely silenced that voice of pride that wants me to rely on my own resources. And it it forced me to say, okay, this is not working. I, you know, there is no amount of striving and you know, prayer and reading the word and and physical therapy and treatments that can, you know, that I can use to get through this. Um, forget spiritual disciplines, I I can't even get through the next day. And it forced me into this place of just whether I liked it or not, depending on God and trusting Him to provide for the next day and the next answer, the next diagnosis, the next treatment.

SPEAKER_00: 34:33

Were there times you wanted to quit?

SPEAKER_02: 34:35

Of course. Um, and there were times where I had genuinely had no idea what the next diagnosis was, um, what the next treatment that I would go through was, I'm you know, going into that surgery. I had no idea if I would even wake up. Um, and so I absolutely wanted to be done with it. Um but instead, you know, God almost in an act of mercy, though I didn't know it at the time, allowed me to continue through that um knowing what was what was ahead.

SPEAKER_00: 35:07

Okay, so the I just had a thought. You were talking about your stubbornness, yes, kind of innate in your nature, which can be a blessing and a difficulty. I mean, really, like any of our our character qualities can be used for good or not. How do you like what character qualities do you feel like developed for you during all this? Or how are they changed? Like maybe that stubbornness that could have been a liability now is a strength, you know.

SPEAKER_02: 35:37

I would say I still absolutely can be very stubborn when it comes to asking for help. Um to Oh, I know. Yeah. Um so I sanctification is an ongoing process. Um I would say that I really struggle to just let go of outcomes and trust them to the Lord. And cancer was almost an act of a manifestation of the Lord's grace where he was actually teaching me to trust him and to just surrender the outcome to him because I had no choice. You know, the outcome of the surgery was going to happen regardless of of what I did. Um, but what was so merciful about that was it trained me to let go of the circumstances that I did have control over and to trust those, trust those with the Lord, knowing that he had been faithful with cancer. And if that's something that he can be faithful with, then any other part of my life, whether I have control over it or not, he can be faithful with.

SPEAKER_01: 36:42

That's so good. Well, as you know, I also went through my own cancer journey last year, just went through uh mine was a lot less severe and um not quite as uh intense as your journey there, but uh there were quite a few people um like you had said earlier who responded well. There's quite a few people that uh not so well, a lot of things that were said. Um did anyone say anything, you know, trying to be helpful that actually made things worse for you?

SPEAKER_02: 37:17

Yeah, this can be a really difficult one. Um I think the phrase everything happens for a reason is a difficult one. Um and and I've actually seen people who have completely walked away from the church because so many people responded with that when they went through some really difficult circumstances, and it just wasn't a satisfying answer for them.

SPEAKER_00: 37:39

Yeah. So the platitudes don't help.

SPEAKER_02: 37:41

Um no. I I would say that it the people who really um supported me through and responded well in my, you know, in my experience was the people who instead of necessarily having some really eloquent thought-through response, were just the ones who who stayed around, who um were, even though my circumstances looked completely different, they still invested in our friendship or um you know, as as a family relationship, and they still um supported me, they still had those conversations with me.

SPEAKER_00: 38:18

I've heard that called the Ministry of Presence.

SPEAKER_02: 38:21

Yes, yes, just simply being there. And that also turned into an opportunity for me to practice extending grace, where um sometimes people would have responses to when I share um my diagnosis that were hurtful or insensitive. And that was an opportunity for me to say, okay, if the rules were reversed, I would have no idea how to respond. It's just difficult to know what to say to somebody who's experienced something very difficult. Um and so now, um, on the flip side of it, whenever somebody approaches me with a difficult experience, um I've learned the power of just not necessarily trying to think through some perfect response, but just saying, I'm sorry, this is difficult. How can I be there for you? And then actually carrying that out and being just in their presence, being with them.

SPEAKER_00: 39:10

Well, looking back on all this, what would you have missed if you had never had cancer?

SPEAKER_02: 39:18

That's a long list. That's a long list. I would have, I think the biggest thing I would have missed, just going back to the same idea of surrendering. I think I would have can continue to go through high school, continuing to go through college and the rest of my life, just wanting to control every outcome, wanting to use it for my own benefit, for my own comfort, um, wanting to um pursue the things of this world instead of just being exposed to the beauty of Christ and his church and his word. And really a lot of that just came from people continually investing me, investing in me and pointing me to the word. I never would have had any of that without having gone through cancer. And like I said, it really trained me to learn what it looks like to just let go and lean on Christ. So that that's something that I continually can learn to do daily, even when my circumstances aren't forcing me to. Because in my experience, that is the most joyful way to live.

SPEAKER_01: 40:29

I was like asking the why. Like, why would someone want to surrender to Christ? Why would somebody want to uh give up control to what what's the greatest benefit from somebody that might be listening to give up control to someone else, like obviously God and through Christ?

SPEAKER_02: 40:47

I would say uh the harder that we try to control things, the more that we mess them up. Um and the harder that we grasp something, the faster it runs away. And ultimately, we do not have those resources, that strength, the self-discipline to source all that we're trying to control and the outcomes that we want. And so it is really um a freeing thing, a freeing experience to let go and say, Jesus, have with this what you want. Um and I have seen it in my own life, I have experienced it, and I've seen it just in the lives of so many others who have um given their lives to Christ that when whenever they do surrender anything in their life, and especially their whole life to Christ, he uses that for his glory, and that is the most joyful place we could possibly be.

SPEAKER_00: 41:42

Um and the peace.

SPEAKER_02: 41:44

And the peace, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 41:45

Because I I speak from experience, when you're white knuckling something, you just do not want to let go. It's there's no peace there. And when you finally relinquish it, you have peace.

SPEAKER_01: 41:55

Yeah, as a fellow control freak, yeah. I agree wholeheartedly, yeah. Ma'am, so how would you say was the the greatest way that cancer changed your perspective on life then?

SPEAKER_02: 42:09

I would say when I was fifteen, which again, probably a lot of 15-year-olds do this, they live life as if they are the main character, and that it's all supposed to be for their benefit, um, you know, for their for their story, for their own glory. And and cancer showed me that that's not the case. Um, I am not the main character, not in my own story, not in anybody else's story, and that the most joyful life I could possibly live is one where Christ is the main character. And daily I have to remind myself, um, because my pride constantly wants me to, again, be the main character in my own story. And um, cancer has just been a powerful reminder that when I do surrender to Christ and let him be the main character in my story, he carries me through it and he uses it for his own glory.

SPEAKER_00: 43:02

So, what is what is your prognosis today? And what are you doing now with your life? Because you're 19? Yes, correct?

SPEAKER_02: 43:12

Yes. Woof, that feels weird. Um, so my prognosis from a medical standpoint, I am not officially pronounced cancer free. Um, they will continue to monitor me for um a couple more years, and then once about five years since the original or since I came off of treatment have passed, that's kind of when they can pronounce me in remission. Um, that being said, they have continued to monitor the tumor for the now almost three years, I think, that I've been off of treatment. And I have not had any change in um the tumor, um, and they do not expect it to grow. So very, very grateful for that. Praise God. Um, and I've also had a lot of growth in my arm. Again, still can't reach it above my arm, uh, above my head, but um thanks to some surgeries I had um where they actually unplugged those unhealthy nerves and plugged in some healthy ones, which is fascinating. Um I was able to regain a lot of function. So that has uh just been another place where um God has just poured his grace um on me and and allowed me to um be functional. You know, most of what humans do is kind of in the uh the realm at the waist level. We're not typically reaching our above our heads a lot. And so um that's been very encouraging um from a medical standpoint. Um I am now a student at CU Boulder. I'm studying um integrative physiology and kind of along that pre-med track. And the goal for me is to um go to medical school. I had the opportunity to go um on a medical missions trip this summer and um just got just a little foretaste of what that looks like to be um using medicine as an avenue to share the gospel, and it was just a life-changing experience and something that I want to do with the rest of my life. And so that's the goal. It's a lot of school. Um, I'm gonna have to keep my head in the books for um a good little while still. Um, but I know that the Lord will provide the strength and the discipline to do that for the next seven plus years, um, if that's his will. And man, I just pray that I get the opportunity to do medical missions full time.

SPEAKER_01: 45:31

Well, if somebody's listening right now who's in their own dark valley, maybe it's cancer, maybe it's something else that's just crushing them, maybe they're wondering where God is. What would you tell them? And not the churchy answer. Yeah, the real one.

SPEAKER_02: 45:46

I would start by saying bring your questions to God. Um, even the hard ones, even the ones where you're questioning if he's there, even the ones where you're questioning if he's good. Um, we see that in Job, we see that in Lamentations, that God actually welcomes that as a form of worship. Um, second, I would say know that your suffering, whatever you're experiencing, is not a consequence or a punishment for your sin. Um, it is an opportunity for God to just pour his grace upon you and for to learn um to surrender to him. And third, I'd say to do exactly that, to trust him with whatever these circumstances are, knowing that he is faithful, that he is good, and he wants to use this to grow in relationship with you, to pour his love on you, to give you his strength, to give you his love, and he will do that. Um, that is a prayer that he loves to answer.

SPEAKER_00: 46:43

Well, thank you. Thank you for being on the show. Thank you guys. So fascinating, so good to hear your story. And thank you to our faithful listeners for staying with us to the end of the show.

SPEAKER_01: 46:53

If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend. Leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We love it when you guys reach out to us. So hit us up on Instagram or contact us through our website, religionstucks.

SPEAKER_00: 47:08

Can't wait to spend time with you guys again next time.