Before my diagnosis, time was something I rarely thought about. Like most people, I assumed there would be more of it. More holidays. More birthdays to celebrate. More vacations to plan. More years in the home we were building. More opportunities to watch my children and grandchildren continue to grow and build lives of their own.

I wasn’t taking those things for granted. I simply assumed they would come, one after another, as they always had.

Then everything changed.

After the diagnosis, time suddenly became something I thought about constantly. How much time do I have? It became the question beneath every other question.

When doctors discussed treatment plans, I wondered how much time those treatments might give me. When family members talked about future holidays or plans for the coming year, I found myself wondering if I would be there. Even the most ordinary conversations somehow led my thoughts back to the same place.

Time.

The truth is, no one could answer the question I most wanted answered.

Doctors could explain statistics. They could discuss treatment options and probabilities. They could tell me what had happened to other patients with similar diagnoses. What they could not do was tell me exactly how my story would unfold. Would I be here in 6 months, 3 years, 10, this was the constant in my brain, the one thing I thought about in every conversation, even as simple as landscaping our new home…would I be well enough, would I even be here?

At first, I struggled with that uncertainty. I wanted answers. I wanted guarantees. I wanted someone to tell me that everything was going to be okay. Go live your life, you have another 20-30 years. Instead, I found myself living in a space between fear and faith, trying to make peace with the fact that there were some things I simply could not know.

It was during that season that my conversations with God became more honest than they had ever been before. Some prayers were filled with hope. Others were filled with fear. Many were simply conversations spoken into the darkness when sleep wouldn’t come and my mind refused to stop giving me all the bad scenarios.

Of course I prayed for healing. I prayed for successful treatments and good reports. I prayed for wisdom for my doctors and strength for the journey ahead.

But more often than not, my prayers drifted toward the people I loved.

I prayed for my husband. I prayed for my children. I prayed for my grandchildren. I prayed for my family and friends who were carrying burdens of their own.

A diagnosis affects far more people than the person who receives it. While I was trying to process my fears, the people who loved me were wrestling with fears of their own. They were trying to stay strong, trying to remain hopeful, and trying to imagine a future that suddenly felt uncertain. At the same time they had their own lives with burdens to deal with and I knew they were sparing me from them, but all I really wanted was to just be the same person they could come to.

Many nights my prayers had very little to do with me. Instead, I would ask God to place His arms around the people I loved. To calm their fears. To strengthen their hearts. To give them peace when I couldn’t. I knew what I was feeling because I was living it. What hurt even more was knowing that the people I loved were hurting too.

One prayer became a constant throughout those months.

“Lord, not my will, but Yours be done. Give me the courage to walk the path You have placed before me, and wherever You lead, I will follow.”

Those weren’t easy words to pray. There is a difference between trusting God when life is going according to plan and trusting Him when the future feels uncertain.

Over and over, I found myself returning to Proverbs 3:5-6:

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.”

The truth was, there was very little I understood. I didn’t understand why this had happened. I didn’t understand what the future would hold. I didn’t understand how everything would unfold. What I did know was that I wasn’t walking through it alone.

As the weeks passed, something unexpected happened. The fear didn’t disappear, but it stopped controlling every thought. I began to notice things differently.

A family dinner felt more meaningful. A phone call from a friend felt more important. A sunset lasted a little longer. A hug felt a little tighter. Moments that once seemed ordinary suddenly felt extraordinary. I began to understand that a diagnosis doesn’t just change how you view the future. It changes how you view today.

The things I used to rush through became things I wanted to hold onto. The moments I once assumed would always be there began to feel like gifts. And perhaps that was one of the greatest lessons hidden inside all of the fear. None of us know how much time we have. We never did. The diagnosis didn’t change that truth. It simply forced me to acknowledge it.

Most people have the luxury of forgetting that tomorrow isn’t promised. I no longer did. It made me more present, more grateful, and more aware of the beauty hidden inside ordinary days.

I stopped measuring life by how many years might be left and started appreciating the day that was right in front of me. Because in the end, time isn’t measured only in years—it’s measured in moments.

And those moments had suddenly become precious.

But appreciating time and understanding what lay ahead were two very different things.

While I had come to accept that none of us are promised tomorrow, I still desperately wanted answers about my own future. What exactly were we facing? What treatment options existed? What were the doctors seeing that we didn’t yet understand? And most importantly, what did all of this mean for the life I hoped to continue living?

That’s when the search for answers began…