When we first got the diagnosis, all I saw was devastation.
Then I saw hope.
Not instantly. Honestly, not for months.
Her tumor didn’t shrink much from radiation. It took four months before we really started to see a change. She soared through radiation—yes, she had nausea and loss of appetite—but she literally did every single activity through it all.
Her post-radiation MRI was great.
Or at least, I thought it was in the moment.
Until the next morning, when I had the opportunity to really talk about it without a 10-year-old little girl sitting in the room.
I should have seen that there was little to no change after radiation. I read X-rays every day at work. You have the start of a cavity, an abscess, an abnormality anywhere in your mouth? I’ve got you.
But brain MRIs? Tumor borders?
I had no clue.
I couldn’t read that MRI at all, if I’m being honest.
So when I heard the words “no change” the next morning, I broke.
We were scheduled to leave for her Make-A-Wish trip two weeks later.
From everything you see on TV and everything you hear, it should have been the best week ever.
For me, it was one of the worst.
And that had absolutely nothing to do with Make-A-Wish. They were incredible. They went above and beyond in every possible way for our family.
It was the anxiety.
The fear overtook every single moment for me.
I watched her walk. I watched her run. I watched for exhaustion. Weakness. A stumble. A change.
I analyzed everything.
Because at that point, it felt like she was following the statistics.
God was working.
But I could not see it.
Then we struggled to get enough cells.
Her clinical trial was delayed.
It felt like one thing after another.
God was still working.
I just couldn’t see it.
During that time, I didn’t want to hear anyone else’s story. I couldn’t allow myself to see anybody else hurting. I was barely surviving our own reality.
And then, somehow, everything started coming together.
We got the cells.
She started the trial.
Her tumor shrunk.
And then it continued to shrink.
She started defying every odd stacked against her.
She wasn’t just surviving.
She was—and still is—thriving.
And somewhere along the way, I felt God pulling me to reach out to other families. To share her story. To allow her story to be hope for somebody who desperately needed it, just like I desperately needed hope in the beginning.
But somewhere in my mind, I think I decided what that calling meant.
I thought if God brought these families into our lives, we were going to see miracle after miracle.
We would pray.
God would heal.
They would live.
Because why else would He bring them to us?
Then Sunday evening, the sweetest little boy—brought into our lives through this horrific disease—went to be with Jesus.
Another child we prayed fiercely over.
Another family we begged God for.
Another prayer that did not end the way we prayed it would.
And how do you process that?
I actually don’t know.
I’m not going to pretend like I have the answers.
Pain. Devastation. Watching the will of God not look anything like your own will.
It tests your faith in places you never wanted tested.
On Sunday I heard something that has stayed with me: sometimes when we are angry over an unanswered prayer, it is because prayer became the one place we thought we could still have control.
We couldn’t physically control the situation.
We couldn’t fix the disease.
We couldn’t heal the child.
So we made our spiritual requests, and somewhere inside of us, we expected them to be answered because we couldn’t imagine another ending possibly being better than the one we were praying for.
Ugh.
Even writing that is hard.
Because I still don't see a better way.
I know he is in a better place.
I know he is pain-free.
I know.
I know.
I know.
And it is still not fair.
The pain his family has to carry here on earth is not fair.
Why does a compassionate, loving God allow it?
I have no clue.
I could tell myself that maybe Heaven needed him more than we needed him here.
But how could that possibly be true?
I could hope that maybe God was protecting him from something he would have faced later in life.
I could wonder whether there is something about eternity that we simply cannot understand from where we are standing.
But is that the answer?
I don't know.
And that's the problem when you believe in a God this big.
Because I believe He could have changed it all.
I believe He could have healed him here just as completely as He healed him when he entered Heaven.
I believe God could have protected him every day of his life.
I believe he could have grown up, lived a beautiful life, become an old man, and then stepped into eternity.
So how could any other reason ever feel adequate?
I don't know.
Maybe this side of Heaven, it never will.
But there are some things I do know.
Every single one of these kids we have fiercely prayed over knew Jesus.
Jesus loved every single one of them.
Every one of their families is walking through the nightmare no parent should ever have to face.
And every family will survive their grief differently.
I believe God will be with them every step of the way—but even what that looks like may be different for each of them.
There will be anger.
Pain.
Fear.
Anxiety.
Gratefulness.
Love.
Sometimes every single emotion will exist at the exact same time.
And there may be a lifelong battle of trying to understand something we simply cannot understand.
So through it all, this is what I pray:
I pray Faith wins.
I pray that somehow, the promise of seeing their babies again in Heaven becomes greater than the devastation of goodbye.
I pray Jesus shows up in ways that cannot be explained away.
I pray for tangible evidence of His love to cover these families every single day.
I pray that when they are angry, He stays close.
When they question Him, He stays close.
When they cannot pray, He stays close.
When their faith feels too small to carry them, I pray He carries them.
And I pray for the day Scripture promises is coming.
A day with no more death.
No more cancer.
No more fear.
No more parents begging for their child's life.
No more goodbyes.
No more tears.
No more pain.
Only joy that is everlasting.
Until then, we will keep praying.
We will keep believing.
We will keep asking for miracles—even when we know we don't get to decide what the miracle looks like.
And when I cannot understand His ways, when my heart is broken and His answer looks nothing like the one I begged for...
I pray Faith wins.