My name is May, and I was diagnosed with lung cancer in May of 2022. I was 37 years old — a wife, a mother to a toddler, and someone who had never smoked a day in her life. By every standard, I was healthy. I loved long walks, home cooking, organizing life into manageable pieces. I thought I was in control. But cancer has a way of revealing just how much we are not.

It started with a cough that wouldn’t go away. I brushed it off as allergies or maybe just exhaustion. My daughter had just started daycare, and everyone kept telling me, “It’s just daycare germs. Your immune system will catch up.” I wanted to believe that. But the cough got worse, and with it came crushing fatigue and eventually back pain. Over and over, I was prescribed steroids, antibiotics, inhalers. No one mentioned the word cancer.

Then in March 2022, I had a violent coughing fit. It scared me enough to finally insist on a chest X-ray. That’s when they found it: a 6-centimeter mass in my lung. Within weeks, we were on a call with a doctor who spoke the words that changed everything: You have lung cancer.

I was in my office, seated at my desk. My husband Darren was dialed into the call from his phone. We listened together in stunned silence as the diagnosis was laid out in clinical terms — pulmonary adenocarcinoma with enteric differentiation, moderately differentiated. When the call ended, I didn’t cry. I just sat there. The world felt suspended. Darren came home shortly afterward, and we stood in our usual spot — right in front of the bar that separates our living room from the kitchen — and held each other. Our daughter was still at daycare. We didn’t pick her up until later. For a few quiet hours, it was just us — two people trying to steady themselves while the ground had clearly shifted beneath our feet.

Treatment began quickly — chemotherapy and immunotherapy to shrink the tumor. After my first round of chemo, my hair began to fall out. Darren came into the shower, fully clothed, just to hold me while I cried. Then he shaved my head for me. Our daughter rubbed my bald head and giggled. That tiny moment reminded me: I was still me. I was still her mother. I was still alive.

That summer was a blur of medications, side effects, and appointments. But something else happened during that time — something unexpected and holy. In the unraveling of my physical life, I began to sense a spiritual invitation. I had never been a religious person. I grew up loosely Buddhist and had never truly known God. But through the kindness of friends, I began to explore the possibility that there was more. That maybe I wasn’t alone.

A dear friend gave me a Bible. Another invited me to read More Than a Carpenter. I started praying — awkward, unsure prayers. I started asking questions. And slowly, gently, I began to believe.

In September 2022, I had lung surgery — a lobectomy to remove part of my right lung. It went better than expected, and I recovered quickly. For a while, I felt strong again. And it was in that stillness — the quiet after chemo and before the recurrence — that I met God in a way I never had before. I had always been the one carrying everything — the planner, the strong one, the helper. But now I was brought low. I had no choice but to receive. I found Jesus not in the hospital rooms or test results, but in the hands that held mine, the friends who brought meals, the Scriptures that spoke straight into my fear. I found Him in the surrender. And I gave my life to Him.

In the summer of 2023, just as my faith was growing and I was preparing to be baptized, I felt something strange in my leg. A scan confirmed what I had feared: my first recurrence. Cancer had returned, this time in my left femur. I underwent radiation right away and began preparing for another round of treatment — this time with a growing awareness that my story might not follow a simple arc of recovery. And still, I chose to be baptized.

In August 2023, I stood before my family, friends, and church and publicly gave my life to Jesus. It was one of the most joyful and peaceful moments of my life — not because the hard parts were over, but because I finally knew I wasn’t walking through them alone. My faith is not a crutch. It’s the ground beneath my feet.

Cancer didn’t stop there. After the radiation, a second recurrence showed up just above the first, in the same leg. Then again, later, in the surrounding muscle — likely from surgical seeding. Surgeries. Radiation. A titanium rod. A permanent limp. Fatigue I can’t always explain. Chemo that fogs my brain and tests my patience. I now live with metastatic disease. But I am not defeated.

If anything, my hope has grown. Not in the sense that I expect to be healed — though I still pray for that — but in the deeper knowledge that healing has already come. My heart is no longer sick with fear. My soul is no longer restless. I am at peace with whatever time I have, because I know where I’m going. I know who holds me. If you are newly diagnosed, I want you to know: You are not alone. No matter how dark the tunnel looks right now, there is a light that cannot be extinguished. Find your people. Ask hard questions. Advocate for yourself. But also — if your heart is open — ask God to meet you. I promise, He will.

This journey has stripped me of the illusion that I was ever in control. But it has given me something far better: a deeper relationship with my husband, a more tender presence with my daughter, and a faith that cannot be shaken. I now wake up every morning and thank God for another day. I see Him in the laughter of my child, in the patience of my husband, in the beauty of a quiet moment. And I no longer live afraid.

I still hope to live a long life — to see my daughter grow up, to grow old with my husband, to write more, share more, love more. But whether I have years or months, I trust that my story is not mine alone. It belongs to the One who is writing it.

My name is May. I have lung cancer. But cancer does not have me. My life is in God’s hands — and I have never felt more alive.

About the Author: May is a wife, mother, and follower of Christ living with metastatic lung cancer. She writes to encourage others to find beauty, truth, and hope — even in the hardest seasons.