Church Activities Overcoming Obstacles Unique Ministries

A NEW HEART

When I was 36, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. My husband and I had been in college ministry with Campus Outreach for a decade when this very difficult time hit in our lives. We also had two young sons. I had spent many years walking with God and studying his Word, but this painful challenge came as a shock to our lives and our faith.

I wrestled with God through surgeries, chemotherapy, and radiation. There was plenty of suffering, but we stood on the truths we had learned and taught others. After several harrowing years, I was blessed to be able to step back into full-time ministry, cancer free.

Fast forward a decade later, and our sons are now teenagers. Last year, I started to feel shortness of breath and thought I should be checked out. I sat in the Mayo Clinic thinking I had asthma, only to learn that I was in heart failure due to the chemotherapy for the breast cancer.

After numerous appointments and tests, the doctors concluded a heart transplant was my only option. I spent over 100 days in the hospital, waiting for someone else to lose his or her life for me to receive a new heart. After this long wait, the perfect match was found, and I underwent a heart transplant. I was blessed once again, and am now fully back to work and engaged in my life and ministry.

Through these major health crises, I’ve had many hard questions for God. I wasn’t supposed to get sick. I was young, athletic, and took care of my body. While I can’t fully understand why these things happened, I go back to God’s Word for His truths. I must stand there for He is so good and so trustworthy, especially in the midst of deeply painful and confusing times.

Since having the heart transplant, I approach the young women I am discipling with much less judgment. I know that I cannot meet their needs and they cannot meet mine. Only Jesus can. It makes it easier for me to point them to Him instead of to myself. I pray to be used by God to love and minister to others, especially in our college ministry and with my fellow heart transplant survivors.

Know Someone We Should Feature? Click Here!

You Might Also Like

No Comments

Leave a Reply

X