Sensing God’s Love through Community

To most of us, hearing the words “It’s cancer” is the worst news we could imagine receiving. To Kristin, those two words were just the beginning of a nightmare in which a stream of bad news continued to roll in. Within the span of just two weeks, Kristin was given the news that she had stage 3 breast cancer, a brain tumor that needed operation, and precancerous cells were developing on her pancreas.

All three of Kristin’s diagnoses needed immediate action. A few weeks later, she underwent brain surgery. A week later, doctors performed an abdominal biopsy of her pancreas. And, after barely giving her body enough time to recover from the first two surgeries, she began chemotherapy for breast cancer. The staples from her brain surgery often caused major headaches. The trauma created devastating physical pain for Kristin, and it also deeply affected her emotionally and spiritually.

Kristin had entered the most difficult challenge she had ever faced in her life. She needed help and guidance from people around her. And, Kristin knew she needed God to walk through this perilous journey with her.

When word started to get out about Kristin’s health crisis, love and support began pouring in from her family, friends, and small group. People showed up to her house with prepared meals, and offered to give her rides to run errands or for doctor visits. Kristin couldn’t believe the amount of meals, visits, rides, and prayers she received from family and friends, both near and far.

Kristin was especially touched by the kindness and compassion shown by her Saddleback church family, some of whom she had never even met. Two separate church prayer teams stopped by her house and prayed with her. Her small group took care of a lot of her meals and transportation needs. The PEACE team she had visited Berlin with two years before even rallied around her for support.

Kristin realized that she could never repay every single one of them. But she understood, too, that God was using these people to extend his own love to her. Looking back, she can’t imagine going through these struggles without her community.

Long nights filled with pain, uncertainty, and doubt focused Kristin’s determination on seeking God in the midst of her crisis. She had never prayed so often or with so much determination before in her life.

Kristin vividly recalls one night, not long after her diagnosis, when she felt God telling her that she would survive all of this. She clung tightly to this promise, especially when the pain was at its worst during her chemotherapy. The treatment had caused her to become extremely weak, to the point of not being able to walk to the kitchen to get a glass of water or even pick up the remote control. She would tell herself over and over again, “It’ll be better the next hour, and the hour after that. It’ll be even better the next day.” She took it just one hour at a time. Her faith had never been stronger.

Today, Kristin is finally able to breathe a sigh of relief after the completion of all the surgeries and treatments. She can’t wait for the five-year remission anniversary in the winter of 2019, when the risk of recurrence significantly decreases. In the meantime, Kristin is back at work full time and making the most of her days. She looks for ways to give back to others. She started fostering kittens and hopes to do more work with pet adoption. She also returned to Europe and visited Saddleback Berlin again, spending time with some of the friends she had met a few years earlier on her first PEACE trip.

When asked what she learned from this life-changing trial besides holding tight to her faith in God and the community he provides, Kristin answered: “Even in the midst of the toughest trial, God gives us choices. We can choose to bless him by trying to always be at our best. And once we get back up again, we make another choice to help others in need.”

Learn more about support groups for medical struggles at saddleback.com/supportgroups