04/15/2026
Hey Everyone,
Let me start out by saying this will be a long post BUT it won’t be me posting my GoFundMe again.
As some of you know I have been working on a poetry book based on this cancer journey I’m taking. But as less of you know I’m also writing a 60 day Devotional book based on dealing with Illness.
I will be posting the first pages from both, the Poetry book is Titled “Memories from the Winter Storm” and the Devotional book is Titled “Faith Through the Fire: Trusting God in the Midst of Illness.”
Both are still a ways off from being completed but I’m working diligently on them while also doing my fundraising.
This is the first page of the poetry book.
This first poem is called
“First Snow”
They said it softly
as if lowering their voice
could soften the word.
Cancer
fell between us
like the first snow of December—
quiet,
but impossible to ignore.
I watched their lips move
like I was underwater.
The room grew colder
though the heat was on.
But it wasn’t the word
that broke me first.
It was her.
I watched the color leave my wife’s face
like warmth leaving a house
with the door left open.
Her eyes—
the same eyes that promised forever—
filled too fast.
She tried to be brave.
She failed.
And somehow
that made me love her more.
In that moment
I felt something shift inside me—
not the cancer,
but the calling.
If she was breaking,
then I would be the beam that didn’t splinter.
If she was trembling,
then I would steady my hands.
I swallowed the storm whole.
Outside,
people carried groceries,
argued over parking spaces,
checked their phones—
and I stood
in a season
no one else could see.
At home
our children laughed at nothing,
chasing light across the floor,
too young to understand
that winter had moved in.
They still reach for me
with sticky hands and open trust.
They still believe
I can fix anything.
So I will.
Or at least
I will stand tall enough
that they never see
how hard the wind is blowing.
They handed me pamphlets
like mittens for a storm
already inside my bones.
I nodded.
I even smiled.
But somewhere
a tree cracked
under the weight
of what I had just learned.
And somewhere deeper
a man decided
that even in winter,
he would be
the fire.
And now this is the first page of my devotional book.
📖 Day 1: When the Diagnosis Comes
Scripture
“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.” — Proverbs 3:5–6 (Bible)
Reflection
When the diagnosis comes, everything changes in a moment.
Plans shift. Fear creeps in. Questions flood your mind faster than you can process them. You try to make sense of it—How did this happen? Why me? What did I do wrong?
Over the last couple of months, I’ve found myself coming back to this passage over and over again: “lean not on your own understanding.”
What’s funny is… this scripture has had a place in my heart long before this moment.
There was a time in my life when I was in a discipleship program, and after getting in trouble, I was told to write out Proverbs 3:5–6 150 times. At the time, it felt like punishment. Just words on a page that I had to repeat over and over again.
But now, I see it differently.
What I thought was just discipline… was actually planting something in me. Something I would need later.
Because if I’m being honest, my understanding tells me this shouldn’t have happened. I don’t smoke. I don’t drink. I don’t do drugs. I’m not even in the age range where this kind of cancer is expected.
By my understanding, this doesn’t make sense.
But that’s exactly where this scripture meets me—again.
It reminds me that just because something doesn’t make sense to me doesn’t mean God isn’t in it. It doesn’t mean He’s absent. It doesn’t mean He’s lost control.
It means I have a choice.
I can lean on what I see… or I can trust in what God has already been teaching me all along.
And trusting Him means believing that even here—even in this diagnosis—His hand is still at work. That somehow, in a way I may not yet understand, things will come together. That He will carry me through this. That He will get the glory from it.
I may not understand the process.
But I can trust the One who does.
Encouragement
No matter how heavy the diagnosis feels, you are not walking through it alone.
God is not confused by your situation. He is not overwhelmed by your circumstances. And He is not absent in your pain.
Even when life doesn’t make sense, you can lean fully on Him—confident that He will guide you, sustain you, and bring you through.
Sometimes, the truths we once learned in passing become the very things that carry us in our hardest moments.
You don’t have to have all the answers.
You just have to trust the One who does.
Prayer
Lord, I don’t understand what’s happening, and if I’m honest, it’s hard not to be afraid. But Your Word tells me to trust You with all my heart and not lean on my own understanding. So today, I choose to trust You—even when it doesn’t make sense.
Help me to see Your hand in this situation. Give me peace when fear tries to take over. Strengthen my faith when I feel weak. And remind me daily that You are with me, guiding me every step of the way.
I place this situation in Your hands, trusting that You will see me through it.
Amen.
Reflection Question
Can you think of a truth God placed in your life in an earlier season that you may need to rely on right now?
