God created us for relationship. Relationship with Him, yes, but also relationship with one another. We need people who will walk with us, pray with us, sit with us, celebrate with us, and sometimes carry us when we do not have the strength to carry ourselves.

Call it what you want. Community. Tribe. Circle. Family.

Whatever you call it, I believe there are people God places in our lives on purpose.

Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 says, “Two are better than one… If either of them falls down, one can help the other up.” I have read that scripture many times, but this past year I experienced it differently. There is something about being the one who needs help getting back up that gives those words a different weight.

When I was diagnosed with cancer, I quickly learned just how much God had already surrounded me with people who loved me.

Before I ever knew what I would need, He knew.

Before I knew how vulnerable I would feel, He knew.

Before I understood how difficult some days would be, He had already positioned people around me who would help carry me through them.

My church family stepped in immediately. They prayed for me, but they did not stop there. They prayed for my husband. They prayed for my children. They covered my entire family because they understood that while I was the one receiving the diagnosis, I was not the only one walking through it.

That kind of prayer matters.

Galatians 6:2 tells us to “carry each other’s burdens.” Sometimes carrying someone’s burden looks like standing in the gap in prayer when they cannot find the words themselves.

Other times, it looks much more practical.

After my mastectomy, people cooked meals or purchased meals for my family for months. Months.

When I think about that now, I am still overwhelmed by the love behind it. It was one less thing my husband had to think about. One less decision our family had to make. One simple way of saying, We are here. You do not have to figure everything out right now.

My coworkers purchased things I needed during recovery. They came to visit me. They checked on me. They reminded me that I was more than the work I did and that there was a community standing behind me while I healed.

My family traveled from different states just to be with me.

Some came to sit beside me.

Some came to help.

Some came to make me laugh.

Some simply came because they knew their presence mattered.

And it did.

There is a beautiful story in Mark 2 about a paralyzed man whose friends were determined to get him to Jesus. The house was so crowded that they could not get through the door, so they climbed onto the roof, made an opening, and lowered their friend down in front of Jesus.

I have always loved that story, but I understand it differently now.

Sometimes you need people in your life who are willing to carry your mat.

People who will believe when your faith feels tired.

People who will pray when you do not know what to pray.

People who will show up when there is nothing they can fix.

People who will simply refuse to let you walk through the hard places alone.

And notice what Scripture says: “When Jesus saw their faith…” He saw their faith.

There are seasons when the faith of the people surrounding you becomes part of what carries you.

I think we sometimes convince ourselves that being strong means being independent. We tell ourselves that we do not want to bother anyone. We say, “I’ve got it,” even when we clearly do not. We become so accustomed to being the person who helps everyone else that receiving help can feel uncomfortable.

I know that feeling.

But I am learning that there is no prize for doing hard things alone.

Romans 12:15 tells us to “rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.” That kind of life requires proximity. It requires us to know one another well enough to recognize when someone needs celebrating and when someone needs someone willing to sit beside them in the pain.

Community is not just about having people around you.

It is about having people who will walk with you.

And sometimes God’s provision does not arrive as a miracle that changes the situation overnight. Sometimes His provision looks like a text message at exactly the right moment. A meal sitting on your porch. Someone showing up at the hospital. A friend sitting quietly in your living room. A coworker bringing something you did not even realize you needed. A family member getting on a plane because they know you should not be alone.

Sometimes the answer to “God, how am I going to get through this?” is found in the people He has already placed around you.

I saw the hands and feet of Jesus through the people who loved me well.

And I do not take that lightly.

The truth is, community requires something from both sides. It requires people willing to show up, but it also requires us to let them.

That second part can be hard.

There were moments when I had to allow people to see me tired, vulnerable, uncomfortable, and unable to do the things I would normally do for myself. I had to receive instead of give. I had to allow people to carry pieces of the load.

Maybe that is part of what God was teaching me too.

We need one another.

Not because we are weak, but because this is how He designed us.

Jesus Himself lived in community. He gathered people around Him. He ate with them, traveled with them, taught them, prayed with them, and allowed them into intimate moments of His life. Even in the Garden of Gethsemane, knowing what was ahead, He asked His disciples to stay near Him and pray.

If Jesus demonstrated the importance of community, why would we believe we are supposed to navigate our hardest seasons by ourselves?

So, whatever you call yours, your community, your tribe, your circle, your family, cherish them.

And pay attention to the people God has placed around you.

Some relationships are more purposeful than we realize.

And if you are in a season where someone is carrying you right now, let them.

Receive the meal.

Answer the call.

Let them pray.

Let them sit beside you.

Let them carry the mat for a little while.

And when your strength returns, remember how it felt to be carried.

Then go carry someone else.

Because we were never meant to do this life alone.

Until then, keep abiding.

Before I left, a friend encouraged me to find some quiet time while I was there. Not sightseeing. Not filling every moment. Just time alone with the Lord to listen and hear whatever He wanted to say to me.

So on the morning of March 31, I decided I would sit on the balcony and watch the sunrise.

In my mind, I pictured something peaceful. The sky slowly changing colors, the sun coming over the horizon, me sitting there with God in this beautiful place.

But when I stepped outside, it was pitch black.

And almost immediately, fear began to rise in me.

I could barely see anything in front of me. I was in another country, sitting alone in the darkness, and for a moment I wanted to go back inside.

Instead, I closed my eyes.

As I sat there, a calm came over me. I remembered something I have known for years, but sometimes need to be reminded of: God is still present in the dark.

The darkness does not mean He has left.

It does not mean He cannot see me.

It does not mean I have been forgotten.

El Roi, the God who sees me, was sitting with me before I could see the sun.

So I began to pray.

I cannot fully explain it, but after a while I could feel that morning was coming. The darkness had not completely disappeared yet, but something was changing.

I opened my eyes.

And in my spirit, I heard two words:

Be restored.

That was it.

Be restored.

At the time, I thought I understood what God meant.

I had just lost my Abuela, and grief had left an emptiness I did not know how to name. I assumed God was speaking directly to that loss. I thought restoration meant healing my heart from grief, helping me adjust to life without someone I loved so deeply, and putting back together the pieces that loss had disrupted.

And I believe He was speaking to that.

I just did not realize He was speaking beyond it.

Nine months later, doctors found two tumors in my left breast.

I remember after having my biopsy, hearing those same words again in my spirit.

Be restored.

This time, I knew.

I knew the results were probably not going to be what I wanted to hear.

And yet, strangely, I also knew something else.

God was with me.

The same God who met me in the darkness before sunrise had already gone ahead of me into a darkness I did not even know was coming.

That realization has stayed with me.

Sometimes God gives you a word before you understand why you will need it.

Sometimes He whispers something over you in one season that will become an anchor in another.

Isaiah 42:16 says, “I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth.”

God does not promise that we will never experience darkness. He promises to lead us through it.

And sometimes, it is in the darkness that we learn just how close He really is.

When I sat on that balcony, I was waiting for the sun to rise outside of me. I had no idea God was preparing me for a season when I would desperately need to believe that light could rise inside of me too.

Cancer changed my body.

It changed the way I saw myself.

It changed my relationship with time, rest, priorities, strength, and even vulnerability.

There are things that were taken from me in this journey that I cannot simply pretend did not matter.

And that is why I have learned that restoration is not always God returning everything to exactly the way it was.

Sometimes restoration is God making something whole in a new way.

Joel 2:25 says, “I will restore to you the years that the locust has eaten.”

I used to read restoration and think replacement.

Give it back.

Put everything back where it was.

Make it look like it did before.

But now I understand restoration differently.

Restoration can look like peace where fear once lived.

Strength after exhaustion.

Joy that returns slowly.

Trust rebuilt after disappointment.

A body you are learning to love again.

Faith that has been stretched but not destroyed.

A heart that has learned how to carry both gratitude and grief at the same time.

Restoration does not always erase what happened.

Sometimes it reveals what survived.

And maybe that is what someone reading this needs to hear.

Your need for restoration may have nothing to do with cancer.

Maybe you are grieving someone you thought you would have more time with.

Maybe a relationship ended and you are still trying to understand who you are without it.

Maybe you have spent years pouring into everyone else and somewhere along the way lost pieces of yourself.

Maybe you are tired in a way sleep cannot fix.

Maybe disappointment has made you hesitant to hope again.

Maybe you are walking through a season so dark that you cannot yet see evidence that morning is coming.

But darkness has never prevented God from seeing you.

Hagar discovered Him as El Roi, the God who sees, in a wilderness place. Not after everything had been resolved. Not after her circumstances became easy. He revealed Himself while she was hurting, displaced, and uncertain about what would happen next.

That comforts me.

Because sometimes we think God will meet us once we get ourselves together.

But El Roi sees us while we are still trying to find our way.

Jehovah Rapha, the Lord who heals, is not limited to physical healing.

He restores hearts.

He restores hope.

He restores identity.

He restores courage.

He restores the places in us we have learned to hide from everyone else.

Psalm 23:3 says simply, “He restores my soul.”

My soul.

Not just my circumstances.

Not just my body.

Not just the things other people can see.

My soul.

That is the kind of restoration I am learning to receive.

There are still parts of my own journey that God is restoring. Some healing has happened quickly. Other healing has come layer by layer.

But I no longer believe restoration has to be rushed to be real.

The sunrise I watched in Japan did not happen all at once either.

First, there was darkness.

Then there was a hint of light.

Then slowly, almost imperceptibly, everything began to change.

And eventually, morning came.

Maybe restoration looks like that too.

Maybe today you do not need everything fixed.

Maybe you just need enough light to believe morning is still possible.

Enough strength to take another step.

Enough faith to believe that the God who sees you has not lost sight of you.

Enough hope to believe that what feels broken is not beyond His reach.

I still think about that balcony.

I think about how afraid I felt before the sun came up.

I think about the woman sitting there believing God was only speaking to her grief.

And I think about how lovingly He gave me a word I would carry into a battle I did not yet know I would have to fight.

Be restored.

I believe those words were for me.

But maybe today, they are for you too.

Whatever has been lost.

Whatever has changed.

Whatever has broken your heart.

Whatever season has left you wondering whether you will ever feel like yourself again.

El Roi sees you.

Jehovah Rapha is near.

And the God who restores souls is still at work.

Even here.

Even now.

Even in the dark.

Be restored.

Until then keep abiding!

I admittedly have never been very good at resting.

Normally, I would fill a vacation with a thousand things to do and places to go, leaving little time to enjoy the very place we traveled to escape the everyday hustle and bustle.

There was always somewhere else to visit, another restaurant to try, or one more thing to squeeze into the day. Rest was something I would consider only after everything else was done.

The problem is, everything is rarely done.

This time, I noticed when I was tired. I allowed myself to slow down without feeling like I was wasting the day. I rested when my body needed rest, even when there were other things I could have been doing.

Cancer taught me to stop, take a minute, and regroup.

But why did it take cancer to teach me that?

Why do we not intentionally make time to recharge and recoup before our bodies or circumstances force us to?

So many of us have become accustomed to pushing through. We keep going because people need us, responsibilities are waiting, and there is always something that feels more important than taking care of ourselves.

We convince ourselves that we will rest later.

After the work is done.

After everyone else is taken care of.

After the deadline has passed.

After the house is clean.

After the next commitment.

But later continues to move.

We were never created to live without rhythm or rest.

I am learning that rest is not something we have to earn. It is not a reward reserved for the moment when every task has been completed.

Rest is part of how God restores us.

It gives our bodies space to recover, our minds room to quiet down, and our spirits an opportunity to hear from Him without the noise of everything competing for our attention.

Even Jesus stepped away from the demands around Him.

“But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”
Luke 5:16

There were still people who needed healing. There were still crowds waiting to hear Him teach. There was still important work to be done.

Yet Jesus withdrew.

He did not wait until every need had been met before making time to be still with the Father.

That challenges me because I often feel as though I cannot stop until everything and everyone has been taken care of.

But there will always be something unfinished.

Rest requires us to trust that God can continue working while we pause.

It reminds us that we are not responsible for holding everything together. It gives us permission to place what we are carrying into God’s hands and acknowledge that we have limits.

Those limits are not a weakness.

They are part of being human.

There is a difference between being lazy and recognizing that your body, mind, and spirit need care. There is also a difference between truly resting and simply sitting still while your mind continues running through everything that needs to be done.

Real rest involves surrender.

It means quieting the thoughts that tell us we should be doing more. It means releasing the guilt that sometimes comes when we choose to pause. It means believing that our worth is not measured by how productive we are or how much we accomplish in a day.

“Be still, and know that I am God.”
Psalm 46:10

Stillness reminds us that God is in control.

The world does not stop moving because we take a moment to breathe. God does not stop working because we take time to recover.

I wish it had not taken cancer for me to understand how important it is to listen to my body.

I wish I had learned sooner that rest is not something to feel guilty about.

But I am grateful that I am learning now.

I am learning to slow down before I am completely depleted.

I am learning that I do not have to fill every moment.

I am learning to enjoy the places I prayed to visit and the people I prayed to share life with.

I am learning that sometimes the best thing I can do is sit still, take in the moment, and simply be present.

There is nothing wrong with planning, exploring, or making the most of a vacation. But I no longer want to return home exhausted because I was so focused on doing everything that I never allowed myself to enjoy anything.

Rest does not take away from the experience.

Rest allows us to be present for it.

Perhaps we should not wait for illness, exhaustion, or a difficult season to force us to slow down.

Perhaps we should begin paying attention now.

To the tension in our bodies.

To the heaviness in our minds.

To the quiet whisper telling us that we have done enough for today.

Rest is not abandoning our responsibilities.

Sometimes rest is the responsible choice.

It is how we recharge, regroup, and return with the strength to continue.

Sometimes stopping is exactly what allows God to restore us for what comes next.

Until then Keep Abiding! 💕

Nobody tells you that healing after breast cancer has layers.

The world sees that the cancer is gone. The surgeries are over. The appointments become less frequent, and everyone begins to breathe again. They see survival, and you are grateful because you prayed for that moment too.

But while everyone else slowly returns to life as usual, you begin to realize that life may never feel usual again.

You are not simply going back to who you were before cancer.

You are learning how to abide in who you are becoming.

The past six months have been a whirlwind. I went from diagnosis to countless appointments, information overload, people’s opinions, and more decisions than I ever imagined having to make. In the middle of it all, my health insurance dropped me, which was the last thing I needed while fighting for my health.

Yet through every appointment, decision, and moment of uncertainty, there was still a calm within me. I did not always know what the next step would be, but I knew the Lord was guiding me.

This season required me to trust Him in a way I had never needed to before. Proverbs 3:5 tells us to trust in the Lord with all our hearts and not lean on our own understanding. That became more than a familiar Scripture for me. It became the way I had to live.

Today marks six months since my diagnosis, four months since my mastectomy and one month since my reconstruction surgery. I am on the island I love most, surrounded by some of the people I love most.

This trip is a celebration of life, family, and everything God has carried me through.

Still, there are moments when I feel disconnected.

Not because the people around me do not love me. They do. But there are parts of this journey that are difficult to fully understand unless you have lived through them yourself.

There is so much you go through that you simply cannot share. Some things are too personal, some are too painful, and some you do not yet have the words to explain.

There is a tension in wanting the people you love to understand while also never wanting them to experience what it would take to truly understand.

And that is where the deeper healing begins.

Healing is not over for me. In many ways, it has only just started.

My body has been through a double mastectomy, months of expansion treatments, pain, recovery, and reconstruction. Now I am learning how to live in a body that does not always feel like my own.

The scars on the surface are healing, but there are scars on the inside that also need time, prayer, patience, and grace.

I am learning to give myself the same grace I would freely give another woman. I am learning not to rush my healing simply because the people around me are ready for the difficult part to be over.

I am also learning that gratitude does not cancel out grief.

I can praise God for what remains and still grieve what cancer took.

The breasts that are gone were never where my beauty or worth lived, but they were still part of my story. They were part of my womanhood and motherhood. They nourished my babies and gave them comfort.

That loss carries a grief people do not always talk about because survivors are often expected to only feel thankful.

But grief and gratitude can sit at the same table.

I can look at my scars and feel sadness while still recognizing that the woman looking back at me is a miracle.

Psalm 139:14 says, “I praise You because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

That was true before cancer.

It was true before surgery.

And it is still true now.

My body has changed, but God’s view of me has not.

My sons watched their mother fight a battle I never wanted them to witness. They saw strength, but they also saw vulnerability. They saw me need help, rest, cry, and walk through uncertainty.

I pray they remember more than cancer. I pray they remember courage, faith, and a mother who trusted God even when she did not have all the answers.

Isaiah 43:2 says, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.”

Not if.

When.

God never promised we would avoid every difficult season. He promised we would never walk through one alone.

So here I am, still healing, still processing, and still learning this new version of myself.

Cancer changed my body, but it did not change who God created me to be.

I am still a woman.

I am still a mother.

I am still whole.

I am still His.

I do not know what all of this was for just yet, but I believe God wastes nothing.

I believe He can use what wounded me to help another woman feel seen. He can use what tried to silence me to give me something meaningful to say. He can take the parts of this journey I never would have chosen and still bring purpose from them.

So to the woman who has finished treatment but does not feel finished healing, give yourself grace.

You are allowed to need time.

You are allowed to be grateful and still grieve.

You are allowed to celebrate survival and still admit that the journey changed you.

You are not less beautiful because of what cancer removed.

You are not less feminine because your body changed.

You are not less whole because you carry scars.

You are still becoming.

Still healing.

Still held.

Still His.

And when you look in the mirror, my prayer is that one day you will not only see what cancer took.

You will see what God carried through.

Until then, keep abiding.