Facing the Fear of Cancer

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Hey, it's Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth here, and I'd like to say a quick word of thanks to those who have already given toward our December matching challenge of $2.1 million. Maybe you've been thinking about making a donation, but you haven't had the chance to do that yet. Well, time’s running out! We’d love to hear from you by December 31 at ReviveOurHearts.com or you can call us at1-800-569-5959. Thanks so much!

Dannah Gresh: Dawn Wilson says God’s love is what helped her face a scary cancer diagnosis with courage.

Dawn Wilson: I just call it snuggling in to God. I mean, just realizing He was there for me. He hadn’t changed. He was still my strong refuge and who loved me. He loved me deeply, and He delighted in me, and I didn’t have to be afraid.

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, coauthor of You Can Trust God to Write Your Story, for December 26, 2023. I’m Dannah Gresh.

Well, it’s the day after Christmas, and I hope you had a wonderful celebration of the birth of Christ. I know for some, this holiday season has been hard. Maybe you or a loved one received a difficult diagnosis, or you’re dealing with a loss. I’m really thankful that the good news of Jesus lasts longer and runs deeper than this season on our calendars. He is the one we hold on to in the good times and not so good times. 

I venture to say that all of us will be affected by health issues at some point either in ourselves or those we love. And today’s guest will show us how to trust God to write your story when it involves a serious diagnosis. The program we’ll hear today was recorded a few years ago, and tomorrow we’ll get a more recent update from our guest. Here’s Nancy to welcome her.

Nancy: Well, I am so grateful today to have the privilege—and it really is that—of talking with a longtime friend, one of our Revive Our Hearts team members who doesn’t live here in Michigan but lives out on the West Coast and serves with us from there.

And Dawn Wilson is in the middle of quite a journey, quite a story that God is writing. She knows that. It’s not the story she would have written, but it’s the story that God is writing for her.

Dawn, thank you so much for being willing to join us from your home in Southern California today to just talk about the script that God is writing in your life.

Dawn: Oh, I’m so glad to be a part of this, Nancy. I’ve learned so much from you over the years, and I’m sure that part of what I’ve learned from you and others there at Revive Our Hearts has really poured into this new journey I’m walking on.

Nancy: We’ve known each other a long time. Actually, you and your husband Bob were some of the very first team members of our parent ministry, Life Action Ministries, and the Lord has used you and your husband in a significant way in some strategic overseas ministry opportunities. We could actually talk the whole time just about some of the things God has taught you in that journey, but just thank you.

When I think of you, Dawn, I think of a woman who is always saying, “Yes, Lord,” to whatever piece or part of the journey He has you on. I’m sure that’s not always easy. It certainly isn’t easy in this current journey we’re going to talk about. But I just want to affirm that I have seen that in you, that when Providence writes a story for you that you had not anticipated, you are so quick, it seems, to say, “Lord, I don’t understand this, but I embrace it.”

It seems like the practice of doing that for years perhaps is what has helped to prepare you for now facing some tremendous health challenges. Do you sense that yourself?

Dawn: Yes, I do. It’s amazing to me. I actually went through some things that I had written recently, and counted all the times that I had mentioned the sovereignty of God or the providence of God. I was amazed. It was just flowing through my life right now. I recognized that God must have been building that into my life through the years as I believed His Word, that He really is the sovereign God who has a purpose in my life.

Nancy: And what a great thing that that foundation has been laid in your heart—not just your mind but in your heart and your life—because I think if we ignore God’s sovereignty, if we ignore His providence, if we’re not trusting Him in the everyday matters of our lives, then when we get to these hard places, we have no foundation. We have no mooring for our souls.

Dawn: That’s right.

Nancy: I’ve watched your heart be tethered to truth in this journey, and I can’t help but believe that that’s because of decades of soaking in God’s Word and believing what God says. And now when the chips are down, from a human standpoint, that’s the default, the way your heart is inclined. It’s to say, “God is good, and I trust Him even when I can’t see what He’s doing.”

Dawn: That’s right. It’s all about daily surrender to that. I can believe it in my head, but if I’m not going to surrender to that truth and embrace it, then it really isn’t going to have an effect in my life. But God’s been enabling me to do that.

There’s been some hard times when I question the truth. There’s nothing wrong with questioning the truth, as long as you go back to the Word and see what God has to say for Himself.

Nancy: I love that—back to the truth.

So unpack for us, just a little bit. Tell us what you received, a really startling, unexpected diagnosis. Just give us a little bit of sense of what led up to that. I know you hadn’t been feeling well for a while. Give us a bit of the picture of what led up to that difficult diagnosis.

Dawn: Well, in 2018, around October, I developed a respiratory problem. It just got worse and worse, and nothing the doctor was doing was helping that. So by mid-January, it was still bad. It kept coming and going, but I was not getting healed from it. So my doctor said to go in and have a blood test, and that was mid-January, just to see if something was going on.

I remember she called that afternoon and she said, “I want you to go to the emergency room now.”

And I said, “You mean, like Urgent Care to get some medication?”

She said, “No, Dawn. I want you to go to the emergency room.”

And that was a two-day hospital stay, and during that time they discovered I have multiple myeloma. It’s a chronic, non-curable disease. It’s a rare cancer of the plasma cells. The plasma cells just multiply. They clone themselves, and they start taking over and basically killing off the red blood cells. I was extremely anemic, and that was the big clue that there was something going on with my red blood cells. So that was kind of a shock.

Nancy: I’m sure it was! Were you alone? Was Bob with you? Do you remember when you first heard that diagnosis? Just give us a picture of what that moment was like for you.

Dawn: Well, when I got the phone call to go to the emergency room, I was just holding the phone in the living room and looking at Bob. I told him when I got off the phone, “We have to go to the emergency room right now.” We were overwhelmed by that. So, yes, he was home from ministry overseas—which I was thankful. And he was with me the two days in the hospital through all the different tests.

It was such a confusing time. And I have to say, in one way I was almost relieved to have a name for what was going on, even though it was such a shock that there was something that serious that was wrong. And I realized that this is going to be a total change in my life from that point on.

Nancy: So the “C” word—cancer.

Dawn: Yes.

Nancy: What did that do to your mind, your heart? Give us a sense of the emotions around that.

Dawn: Oh, I had so many friends who were actually going through cancer at that time—different kinds of cancer. I didn’t realize how many kinds of cancer and how different they are and how different treatments are. I had never heard of the word, “multiple myeloma.” I had no idea what it was. So that was kind of scary because I didn’t know what it was going to mean.

And then to have the doctor say, “Well, without treatment, you have probably less than a year. And if we can get you a stem cell transplant someday, we can get you five years.”

And just that . . . it sounded so finite—to have years put to my life. I really wasn’t quite sure at first how to handle that.

Nancy: Just to give context here. You’re in your sixties, and you’re blogging, you’re writing. Dawn serves as a research assistant with our ministry but does a lot of her own writing and blogging as well. You do some speaking. You’ve had a very active ministry life. You’ve got grown kids and grandkids, and you’re active in their lives.

So this wasn’t at all what you were expecting to hear, like a number of years attached—and it’s not like you’re eighty years old.

Dawn: Right.

Nancy: So, where does your mind go in that? You say a year without . . . is it the stem cell replacement? Am I saying that right?

Dawn: Stem cell transplant.

Nancy: And even with that, maybe five years? I mean, it has to be, if you’ve not been to that point before, so jarring. Describe what kind of process your mind goes through when you start thinking in those terms.

Dawn: Well, I had some funny thoughts, actually. I thought, Well, if I’m going to die soon, I want to make sure I go through all the stuff in my house so my family doesn’t have to deal with all my junk. I mean, silly little things like that.

And also things like, “What are the priorities in my life? What am I going to do with the time? If I have a year left, what’s the most important? If I have five years left, what’s the most important to deal with? What would honor the Lord? How can I glorify Him? Will I have the strength to do anything?”

This is going to be a new normal for me, and I’m a Type-A person. I’m just constantly on the move, constantly doing two or three things at once. That’s always been my pattern. And now all of a sudden to realize that I’m going to be knocked down to my knees and be so weak that I’m not sure I know what I’m going to be able to do. That was a jarring thought to me.

Nancy: During this time, you’ve done such a beautiful job of communicating with people who know you and are praying for you. You call them “Team Dawn.”

Dawn: Right.

Nancy: These are your prayer partners. You’ve posted a lot of these updates on Facebook and through email and other means. I printed out yesterday just a series, a sequence of those updates that you’ve posted. I’d love for you to read a few of those because you’ve been journaling your heart. It’s kind of a way you’re sharing with people to pray for you, but it also expresses what’s going on in your heart.

I’m looking here at the first update that I see that you sent out in January—January 25, 2019. It says, “Dear Praying Friends,” and it’s when you told people about the first, the initial diagnosis. It’s a lengthy update—we won’t read the whole thing—but I’d love for you to just read that part in the last paragraph that we’ve highlighted there, and just what was going through your heart and your head when you were telling people about this and asking them to pray for you. Can I just get you to read that?

Dawn: Right. Nancy, it’s funny—I’m a writer, but I’ve never journaled. And so putting all this on Facebook actually had become a journal for me. I remember writing that day, and at the end of that very first post, when I was just struggling. The doctor said I was strangely calm and not like most of his patients, and I was able to tell him I was calm because my heavenly Father and I had been talking about this for days, and I wasn’t afraid. I wrote, 

God still has a plan, and though it might mean suffering, I firmly believe His plan is always for my good and others’ growth and God’s glory.

And that’s how I began to see this right from the beginning, that God had a plan in this. I wasn’t sure what that plan was going to be, but I knew it was a plan with purpose, and I wanted to make sure I was getting on board with God’s purpose.

Nancy: I love watching that. It is the point we all need to come to if we’re going to have that calm and be free from fear.

You told the doctor that you and your heavenly Father had been talking about this for days. Were there points in that conversation with the Lord when you would say you were afraid? And how did He move you from fear to faith? Can you remember back to that point early on?

Dawn: There’s nothing wrong with being afraid. I think some people think Christians should never have fear, but fear is a very normal, human reaction. So, yes, I did have fear, but when I talked to the Lord about it, He transformed that fear. I think it wasn’t so much faith that transformed my fear as it was God’s love.

The Scriptures do say, “God’s perfect love casts out our fear.” And I think as I kept turning to the Lord . . . I just call it snuggling into God, just realizing He was there for me. He hadn’t changed. My circumstances changed, but He hadn’t changed. He was still my strong refuge, and He loved me. He loved me deeply, and He delighted in me. And I didn’t have to be afraid.

Nancy: Wow. Snuggling into the heart and the love of God. That sounds like something, again, wasn’t new for you. You’ve had some experience in hard times and places that prepared you for this experience. Am I right about that?

Dawn: Yes, but I have to tell you, I’ve written several times that having cancer is a gift because it has deepened that relationship in ways that I never thought possible, ways I didn’t foresee. In many ways I thought I was walking with the Lord in close relationship, but He began to show me different ways that I was still kind of going my way instead of His way. I was trusting my plans and my agenda.

So this whole experience has driven me to say daily, “Okay, Lord. You know I don’t have a lot of strength. What do you want me to do today?” It’s been a much closer walk. I walk with the Spirit and walk in His love more than I ever have before. I call it a gift. It really is a gift.

Nancy: Well, it’s a gift that comes in a package that most people wouldn’t want. You wouldn’t have wanted it. And no one would say, “Lord, bring on cancer, bring on physical affliction.” But as you’re walking with Him through this—and you don’t know the end yet. You’re still very much in the middle of this. You’re receiving it as a gift that God has given you for purposes that are good purposes, for your good, as you said, and for others’ growth and God’s glory.

How did you come to care about those things more than you care about having a healthy body?

Dawn: I think the word is legacy for me. I knew that, first of all, I wanted to be a woman of influence in the lives of my children and grandchildren. And I also wanted to reach my local community, my neighborhood. And I knew that because I had been sharing truth for years on Facebook and in other situations, people—whether I liked it or not—people would be looking at my life to see how I’d respond, to see if what I had been saying was now true.

So I said, “Lord, I want to grow in this, and as I grow, I want to be transparent and share my journey. And if I’m up, I’ll share up. And if I’m down, I’ll share down. But through that whole process, I want to give You glory. I want to show people that Your presence, what You’re doing in my life at this time is making all the difference.”

And to realize that people will be observing . . . I know that Dr. Jeremiah when he went through it . . . As a pastor he went through lymphoma. That was part of his struggle. He knew that people would be watching him, and he didn’t want to be a fake. He wanted to be authentic. And that was my heart, too.

Nancy: And from a distance, Dawn, I’ve watched you do that in such an amazing way. I’ve watched this. I watch your posts, and I think, Oh, Lord, when it’s my time for something that is this life threatening and challenging, I want to have that kind of hope-filled, grace-filled, God-centered response that is going to communicate to the Lord and to others that I know He is writing this story even though it’s not the way I would want to write it.

Tell us just a little bit of an update. I know this is kind of a moving target here. Give us a little bit of a description of what the physical process has been thus far to give us a sense of where you are in this process physically.

Dawn: When we first got an opportunity to speak with a stem cell transplant doctor, he had hoped that I would be able to get that transplant by June or July or August of this year. But my myeloma has been very aggressive, and the lighter chemo and other medications they were giving me earlier on were just not moving the needle at all to help me recover from the anemia that I had to get me to a place where they could actually do the transplant.

So, recently, we were able to change the medication and finally get the cancer chemo that the doctor had hoped I could have earlier on. I’m getting half doses of it to see if I can tolerate it. I’ll be getting twelve cycles of that. So I’m looking at twelve months now of this other kind of chemo before we can even consider the stem cell. We’re just hoping that the red blood cells will multiply, and they’ll be able to take that in a transplant.

But it’s all just so uncertain right now about when that’s going to be, and that waiting is hard sometimes. But there’s providence in the waiting, too. I can see what God is doing and shaping my life, my husband’s life, how He’s changed some relationships in my family. So there’s the joy in the process even though it’s long.

Nancy: You talk about that sense of uncertainty in another entry that you posted on Facebook this past spring. I’d love for you to just read that for us.

Dawn: Sure. 

In this time of uncertainty, I am confident my time is in God’s hands. There is so much I want to do, so I struggle with priorities. I just don’t have much energy. Everything in me wants to be scared right now, but I simply can’t explain the joy I’m finding by resting in God’s sweet mercies and lovingkindness to me. He’s making Himself known every day. So I’m embracing these days as gifts from Him. Everything feels so slow and uncertain right now, but I’m choosing to trust the Great Physician. He knows what He’s doing, and I will be content with what He prescribes.

Nancy: Wow. Just so many things that reveal your heart there but that also reveal God’s heart for you. You talk about His sweet mercies, His lovingkindness. I can imagine that it might be tempting at a time like this to think, God . . . He doesn’t know what He’s doing. Or, How could this be merciful or kind? Have those kinds of thoughts ever crossed your mind? Or do you just lean into what you’ve come to know about God over the years?

Dawn: What I believe about God is a bedrock of my life, but that doesn’t mean that Satan doesn’t tempt me with his lies, different thoughts that shake me up a little bit. Again, I have to keep coming back to the truth of God’s Word, or I can really be overcome by those thoughts, especially in the night hours when I can’t sleep.

I wrote on one post, 

Satan wants me to dread, but I’m choosing to be settled in my thoughts, believing the Lord God knows what’s going on. I don’t need to fear bad news because if bad news comes, my Father God is still with me and working in and through me.

And, as you said, I am in His eternal loving care.

Nancy: It’s interesting, you’ve used the word a couple times, “I’m choosing—I’m choosing to trust.” You’re choosing contentment. You’re choosing to believe that God knows what is going on. That sounds like there is a battle there because you could choose to believe what your emotions are telling you or what you’re feeling when you’re weak. But you’re choosing something that is more permanent, more sure, and more lasting even than your own natural emotions.

Dawn: Right. My whole ministry for years to women has been about making wise and godly choices. So I think the whole idea of choosing really comes natural to me. I want to cooperate with God what He says in His Word, and those are choices. I want to make wise and godly choices.

Sometimes when those scary thoughts come, Satan tempts me to believe less than the truth. But I want to make the choices that are going to give me peace, the choices that are going to help me rest in Him. There really isn’t any strength in our life spiritually unless we’re making those choices to cooperate with God’s loving care.

Dannah: We’ll hear more from Dawn Wilson in a moment. Even in the midst of a difficult cancer journey, Dawn is living a fruitful life. I hope her story is an encouragement to you, whatever you’re facing today.

Revive Our Hearts is here to help you be fruitful in every season of life. In fact, we recently received a note from a woman named Kimberly about Nancy’s teaching. Kimberly wrote this to Nancy:

You have helped me grow in my faith this year and have brought me comfort. I started listening after losing my grandmother and fighting an autoimmune illness. A friend sent me your podcast on grief and I have been listening ever since. I am grateful for what you do for women. Thank you.

Well, we’re grateful to reach women like her thanks to your help. As a listener-supported ministry, you make it possible for us to produce biblical teaching and trustworthy resources to help women around the world thrive in Christ. 

The month of December is especially important as a ministry because we’re wrapping up the year and asking God to provide for the next. We’ll share more at the end of today’s program about how you can join us in a special year end-challenge. Let’s get back to the conversation with Dawn and Nancy.

Nancy: You’ve always been a strong woman, physically strong, healthy, multi-tasking. You get more things done! You’re an amazing woman. So what has been like having to because of the medications and the treatment process . . . physical weakness and weariness and having to change your lifestyle. Talk about the challenge, how life-changing, life-altering that is for you.

Dawn: Well, you’re right. For many years I pushed myself, probably much more than I should have. I even had a godly women’s ministry director tell me, if I wasn’t careful I was going to be burning out. Which I just kind of not scoffed at, but just kind of said, “Ah, but you don’t know me; I can do this!” 

So when God allowed me to have myeloma, it really was His way of taking me down to just the skeleton of who I am and realizing that I wasn’t going to be able to do all these things that I could do before. I had to start thinking: what was really important? 

A lot of those things I thought were so important have just kind of gone by the wayside. Priorities are different. A lot of things I can just kind of release from my life. They just aren’t making a difference anymore. But what is important to me is making sure that every day I'm doing what God wants me to do.

I remember the Bible says that Jesus did all that the Father asked Him to do (see John 5:36). That kind of became my early prayer: “Lord, I don’t have time and strength for everything, so help me to know exactly what You want me to do today.” And I was able to let go of a lot of things. 

In a way it’s been a good thing, another gift, because I’ve been able to release so much of the stress in my life and just really say, “Lord, show me Your heart and show me what you have for me to do today. What is the opportunity that’s there for me to do today so that I can honor You?”

Nancy: Yes, I love John 17:4 where Jesus says at the end of His life, “I have finished the work which You have given Me to do” (NKJV)—not the work everybody else gave Him to do, but the work God gave Him to do. And there’s nothing like what you’re going through to help you recalibrate, “What is the work God has for me to do in this season?” And this season is different than five years ago. It’s a different season. And part of trusting God to write your story is embracing the fact that this season is different than previous seasons.

Dawn: Right. I think we go through some of those, as you say, recalibrations, when we get older anyway. I think we tend to say, “I want to simplify my life. I want to get rid of things in my house I’m not using anymore. I just want to be able to have greater freedom to do what God wants me to do.” 

And so, if we are walking with the Lord, I think we do start casting off some things that are holding us back so that we can end well and we can stand before Him unashamed, knowing we have obeyed Him. So I was a little bit doing that since about the age of sixty-five anyway, so then at sixty-eight to have this hit me, it was like, “Okay, we’re going to speed this process up a little bit.”

Nancy: You're trusting God to write your story in His time and at the time of His choosing. You’ve talked pretty honestly, Dawn, in some of your Facebook posts about dealing with discouragement and doubt. Can you unpack for us a little bit what that looks like and what those hard times look like? What brings on doubt? A little bit of that battle?

Dawn: Yes. Discouragement and doubt have been two biggies for me, and they usually come in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep. That seems to be Satan’s choice time to attack me. There’s nothing wrong with doubt. Doubt can actually lead to faith if we know where to go with our doubts.

So when those doubts about what God’s doing come to me in the middle of the night, I search my heart for a Scripture either I’ve memorized or something I kind of slightly know. I just respond to Satan with that truth. The same thing with discouragement. Discouragement can be a really dark place, but you just turn to the light of God’s Word.

When I do that, He floods my heart with the joy and peace that I need to stand up to Satan and say, “You’re not going to win this one! You may be wanting me to be discouraged, but I am taking God’s courage based on His truth.”

Nancy: So the encouragement, finding courage in God, is what delivers you from that discouragement. Being stripped of courage comes from believing the lies of the enemy. That’s what brings the discouragement, and the battle against that happens through finding courage in God.

Dawn: Right. There’s a Scripture that I’ve embraced. It’s a really simple Scripture, but it’s a Scripture about hope. Hope and courage to me are linked. The Scripture is Psalm 71:14, “As for me, I will always have hope; I will praise you more and more” (NIV). And that goes back to that choice again. I am choosing to have hope in God, and I’m choosing to praise Him and let that praise just mushroom in my life. That is an exciting thing that I actually do see happening.

Nancy: I see it happening in you, Dawn, and it’s a beautiful thing to behold—probably even more than what you realize. Let me go back to the discouragement point for a moment here. You talked about having a bit of a pity party. 

You haven’t done a lot of that, but there have been moments. I wonder if you would just read for us what you wrote on your Facebook post about this whole thing of pity parties?

Dawn:

I was having a bit of a pity party last night, but God would have none of that! My faithful Father reminded me of His unconditional love, a love that caused Him to send Jesus on my behalf and rescued me from my sin . . . the love that daily sustains me, provides for me and keeps me.

I am so thankful God’s love isn’t based on my faithfulness, but on His! He delights in me, and I want to learn how to better delight in Him. Pity parties are such a waste of time! We forget the hope we have in Christ.

Nancy: You could have put a smile after that, when you said, “Pity parties are such a waste of time!” All of us know that’s true. It doesn’t help anything, it doesn’t take us anywhere good. But it is what happens if we forget the hope that we have in Christ. Then what we have left is nothing, right? 

Well, as you’re choosing to believe God’s Word, to cling to it, to trust His heart and the story that He is writing, God is doing some sweet things—not only in you, but through you, to minister. As you’re receiving God’s grace, you’re becoming a channel of God’s grace into other people’s lives as well. You’ve talked about that some on your updates.

Just give us a sense of how He’s maybe giving you greater sensitivity or ability to minister to others in your time of suffering.

Dawn: Well, I think perhaps we have to go through some deep pain before we can truly comfort people in their pain or at least have some measure of understanding of what they’re going through. I wrote: 

In my cancer journey I’m gaining a sensitivity toward those who hurt like I’ve never had before. I’m praying for people I know who are experiencing deep pain this very day, especially for a couple—my nutritionist and her husband—who are walking through the deepest and darkest valley of all with deep faith. I am so thankful for the God of all comfort!

Nancy: So it’s sweet to see that as you suffer, God gives you comfort and then He makes you—even before your suffering is over—able to enter into the pain and the sufferings of others and to be a comfort to them. I mean, how amazing is that!

Dawn: Yes, it’s so amazing, because, I will be honest . . . I think before my diagnosis (I didn’t want to be this way, but) I think I was pretty self-focused, and only focusing on things that affected my life. And it’s like God opened my eyes to the hurting people all around me; that I needed to enter into their lives not only with prayers but with genuine concern and encouragement.

God has really done a work in that selfishness in my life. He’s made me reach outside myself more. That has been a real blessing, too!

Nancy: It’s just amazing, Dawn, to hear you talk about blessing while you’re in the middle of what I know is such a deep, dark valley yourself. Here we are, you’ve got this diagnosis—multiple myeloma. But as you think about the future, the hope would be and the prayer would be that God would restore you, that He would heal, that He would touch your body, that He would reverse or undo (or whatever the terminology is) this cancer.

But you don’t know what’s going to happen. So as you think about healing and the future and lifespan, what is some of your processing on that?

Dawn: I decided whether I have one year or with the transplant, five years . . . and actually, with the transplant that might be nine years, because they would like to freeze some red blood cells to give me at a later time. So I could have maybe nine years. Maybe with the advances in myeloma, even more than that.

But it’s not about the years, it’s about what I do with the time that God has given me, whether that’s a short time or a long time.

Nancy: And Dawn, it’s been so precious to see you embracing God’s providence—mysterious as it is—in that way and just saying “yes” to whatever God says He has for you for this day, without knowing what the future looks like.

You referenced in a post not too long ago, 2 Corinthians 4:16, where the apostle Paul says, “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away [which is true of all of us, by the way, whether we have a cancer diagnosis or not; our outer self is wasting away. Yet Paul said:], our inner self is being renewed day by day.”

And you responded to that verse and you talked about this whole sense of physical healing . . . your outer self, your inner self. Just share with us that thought about what God is doing in you, even while your body—like all of our bodies—is wasting away.

Dawn: Right. I realized that that is the big picture of God’s sovereignty regarding my healing. I wrote,

I will be healed someday, whether on this earth or in heaven, but my inner self is already being renewed—and probably as much from the impact of my diagnosis as anything else. It's driving me into the loving presence of Jesus. I’m walking in the Spirit more than ever before!

Nancy: So you see God doing something in your inner person which is driving you closer to the Lord. It’s enabling you to walk more in line with His Word and His Spirit. You’re saying some of this is the actual fruit of a diagnosis that you never would have chosen if you’d been the one writing your story. Did I get that right?

Dawn: Yes, that’s exactly right.

Nancy: That’s a picture of what God is doing in you now.  But talk about the future, whether it’s one year, five years, nine years—five days, nine days. I mean, who of us knows? Whether it’s cancer or a car accident or whatever? I know you’ve thought more about death and dying as you’ve been on this journey. 

Where does your mind go and what keeps your heart filled with hope, when that could be something depressing to think about?

Dawn: Well, I’m not afraid of dying at all. I know where I’m going to be. I know I’m going to be with my Lord who loves me. So I’m not afraid of dying, but I’m not eager to die, either. I still have some dreams and there are still things I would like to accomplish, and only God knows what’s ahead.

I’d like to write a book. I’d like to write a book as more of a heritage book for my family so that they’ll know what’s in my heart. I would like to have other opportunities to write. I’m thankful I get to write for a couple online magazines, and I love those opportunities. But I think I also want to really consider what “legacy” means. I want my legacy in the Lord to be authentic.

I want it to be used for His glory, and all that really matters is that I’m being faithful to Him. So, yes, I’m not afraid of dying; I’m not eager to die. I have a lot of dreams yet. I think God still puts those dreams in our heart. That’s part of the hope process. But at the same time, in His providence, I can trust Him to know what my last breath is going to be.

Nancy: Our days, our times, our lives are in His hand, right? That’s what the Scripture says (see Psalm 31:15).

Dawn: Exactly!

Nancy: He ordered our days before one of them came to be. Psalm 139:16 tells us that. So, Dawn, you’re in the middle of a perplexing and mysterious providence—mysterious to you and to us, not to God. You and I both know a lot of people who are in the middle of other kinds of providential mystery.

What would you say to encourage somebody who’s listening, who is experiencing a story that is happening in their life that they would not have written for themselves, a story they feel like they have no control over, but it’s what it is. Just from your perspective, which we can tell is just so rich because of what you’re walking through. What would you say to encourage that listener to trust God to write their story, in this season?

 

Dawn: I think, to me, it all boils down to one simple statement: God is still on the throne! God has not changed, though my circumstances have changed. His presence is real; His tender mercies to me are real. His designs for my life are still real, until the day I die. I want to walk closely to Him so that I won’t miss one moment, so I won’t miss one opportunity that He has for me.

The body is wasting away, but the mind and the Spirit—so far—are still there. I want to cooperate with Him in all the good works that He’s prepared for me before the foundation of the world!

Nancy: Yes. And talk to somebody who maybe is not in a hard time or place right now. Thank God, for most of us, storms aren’t our whole life. How do you ready yourself. You talked about a bedrock for your life. What are the kind of things we can be doing in the good seasons, the easier seasons, to be preparing us for the day of the storm or the day of trouble?

Dawn: I think, to walk in the Word. The things that I have read and studied and especially memorized are the things that are coming back to bolster me in my times of weakness. I was reading Psalm 119, and was surprised how many references there are to afflictions, and the hope that we have in afflictions in our God, because of the Word. 

As far as memorization, I kind of joked about it with a friend one day. You know, we talk about technology—copy and paste. I realized that all of those Scriptures I had memorized were like “copying” them into my heart, and now I’m “pasting” them into the struggles of my life!

Nancy: Wow! I love that!

Dawn: I’m so glad that those Scriptures are there. They’re popping into my mind, and they’re bringing real peace. They’re bringing real hope. I think I have some regrets that I didn’t memorize more Scriptures when I was younger, so that those opportunities to paste would be more and more. But I’m thankful for the Word, I’m thankful that I can rest in that sweet peace and walk with the Spirit as I remember the things that God has said in His Word—that truth that helps me fight off Satan’s lies; that truth that encourages me in the middle of the night when I think I can’t go on, when I’m feeling very weak; that truth that shows me that God is my strength. 

So I would encourage people to get in the Word and copy it into your heart and memorize it so it’s real and ready when you need it the most!

Dannah: Such a good word from Dawn Wilson in her conversation with you, Nancy. 

Nancy: Yes, Dannah. I've seen such amazing grace exhibited in Dawn's life over these years. It really was a sweet opportunity to sit down with Dawn as she shared this part of her story.

You know, maybe you can relate to Dawn’s story. Or you may know someone else who’s facing a similar journey. I hope you’ll share this episode with them. 

Dannah: We want to remind you that powerful programs like these are made possible thanks to the support of listeners like you. As I mentioned earlier today, we’re in the middle of a year-end matching challenge. 

Nancy: That’s right. As I've shared this month, some generous friends of the ministry are passionate about the work God is doing in the lives of women around the world through the ministry of Revive Our Hearts. And they have agreed to match every gift given to this ministry during the month of December, up to $2.1 million. That means when you donate any amount between now and Sunday night, the 31^st, your gift will be doubled. It's exciting to think about how many women will be reached in the year ahead as a refult of friends like you who are helping us to meet that challenge. If you want to see how we are doing on that challenge, you can check the progress bar on the top of our website, ReviveOurHearts.com. 

Of course as you give, we don’t want to take anything away from your regular church giving. That's important to them at this time of year. But if you feel prompted by the Lord to join us at this important time, you can give online at ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-5959.

We heard today from a woman who is being fruitful in a difficult season of her life, and I want to thank you for helping women all around the world be fruitful in every season of their lives. 

Dannah: Tomorrow, our friend Dawn will be back with a more recent update on her journey with cancer. I think you’ll be encouraged and inspired by what she has to share. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth is calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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