THE DUALITY OF THE STORM: Faith, Cancer, and the Holy Strength of a Child

Sometimes, a single morning contains two different worlds. One world is filled with the light of grace and the water of baptism; the other is shadowed by the heavy, suffocating veil of grief. This is the truth of the “Quiet Late-Night Posts”—the ones written in the silence when the world is asleep, but the heart is wide awake.

I am sharing these two photos because they are not just pictures; they are a confession. They represent the two parallel truths I carry every single day. In one frame, you see the triumph of faith: smiles, celebration, and the sacred moment of a child being baptized. In the other, if you look closely at the eyes, you see the raw reality: a mother who is exhausted, grieving, and quite literally barely holding the pieces of her soul together.

The Invisible War

This morning was more than just “hard.” It was a battle.

When a family faces Cancer, the diagnosis doesn’t just stay within the physical body. It is a predator. It crawls out of the pathology reports and begins to press against everything you hold dear. It attacks your faith. It strains your family bonds. It seeks out every “weak place” in your spirit and pushes until you think you might break.

I walked into the sanctuary this morning carrying a storm. I felt a sense of shame—a weight that told me I shouldn’t be this broken in a place of worship. I didn’t just sing; I wept. I cried through the worship songs because the gap between the lyrics of “Goodness of God” and the reality of my exhaustion felt like a canyon.

In a moment of total surrender, I turned to my son. The very child we were there to celebrate. I leaned in and asked him—the one with the innocent heart—to pray for me.

A Prophet in Small Shoes

What happened next was a reminder that God rarely speaks in thunder; He usually speaks in whispers. My son looked at me, his eyes clear and untainted by the bitterness of the disease, and said:

“It’s okay, Mama. I love you. Everything is okay.”

In those ten words, the storm hit a wall. In that moment, the theology of the world was stripped away, leaving only the truth: God’s love is greater than anything trying to steal our peace. My son wasn’t just comforting his mother; he was acting as a mirror, reflecting a peace that passes all understanding—a peace that cancer cannot touch, and grief cannot drown.

The Long Walk Forward

To anyone watching from the outside, we look like a normal family in church clothes. But beneath the surface, we are walking through a fire. Yet, today reminded me that even when your legs are shaking and your heart is heavy with the “why” of it all, you are never walking alone.

Faith isn’t the absence of the storm; it is the ability to cry through the worship and still show up at the water’s edge. It is the resilience to be “barely holding it together” and realizing that God is the one doing the holding anyway.

We are going to keep walking. We will walk through the appointments, the side effects, the tears, and the quiet late nights. We will walk on the days it hurts most, fueled by the love of a child and the grace of a Creator who is not offended by our grief.

If you have a moment tonight, please—pray for us. Pray for strength for the weary, healing for the broken, and for the peace that my son so bravely reminded me of today.

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not—and will not—overcome it.

Would you like me to help you draft a specific prayer request or a follow-up post for your community based on this?