Cancer Recovery and Cancer Care Pathway
One minute, you can be living your life and then, it all changes with a single visit to the doctor’s office. With just one word, cancer, life as we know it can come to a screeching halt. How do you navigate the ups and downs: the medical appointments, the scary prognosis and the small glimmers of hope in between? How can you find peace when you or a loved one is facing their own mortality? In this Cancer Recovery and Cancer Care Pathway, you’ll hear from those who understand the fears and life-altering moments that come with a cancer diagnosis. From both those who walked through their own cancer as well as those who have been caretakers for loved ones with cancer, this pathway will bring comfort and hope as you wrestle with the spectrum of emotions that come when your world changes in an instant.
Podcast Episodes:
How can you keep trusting God when you experience the most unimaginable trauma? Where can you find the goodness of God when the pain feels unrelenting?
Erin Ketchen grew up in a family deeply rooted in faith. That foundation became essential when her family was thrust into a season of profound suffering. First, her husband was diagnosed with testicular cancer, a journey they had to navigate together. But nothing could have prepared Erin for the tragedy that followed: the brutal murder of her sister—her best friend—and her young niece at the hands of a deranged neighbor.
Rather than allowing the pain to consume her, Erin discovered a renewed purpose through her suffering. Today, she serves as a Nothing is Wasted coach, using her own story to walk alongside others in their darkest seasons.
In this raw and powerful conversation, Davey and Erin connect over their shared experiences of loss. They explore why moving toward our pain is vital, how Jesus transforms our perspective in suffering, and how God often uses our deepest wounds as the very platform for ministry.
If you've ever wondered how to trust God when life feels hard, this episode will remind you that even in the struggle, His goodness can still be found.
How do you find joy when the diagnosis feels devastating? How can you become the joyful person God calls you to be—even in the midst of your deepest pain?
Author Margaret Feinberg was nearing the completion of a book on joy when she received a life-altering diagnosis: aggressive cancer. What followed was a profound season of wrestling—an honest, raw search to understand what joy truly means when suffering feels overwhelming. Through that journey, Margaret discovered a deeper, more authentic belief about joy: that it can be a defiant act of worship in the darkest valleys. And when we choose to give joy away—even when we don't feel it—our own joy can begin to grow.
In the midst of her pain, Margaret encountered the transformative power and presence of the Holy Spirit. Her latest book, The God You Need to Know: Experience the Holy Spirit’s Power and Presence Today, invites readers to experience that same presence no matter what they’re walking through.
In this uplifting conversation, Davey and Margaret discuss how to truly show up for others in ways that heal rather than hurt, where joy can be found in suffering, and how to navigate the lingering fear that often follows hardship.
If you're in a season where joy feels distant, this episode will encourage you to see that even small acts of sharing joy with others can help awaken it in your own heart as you walk through suffering.
How can spiritual practices help us in the valley of our heartache and suffering? Why is prayer so pivotal in our pain?
For years, pastor of Bridgetown Church and author Tyler Staton taught others how to slow down and engage in the spiritual practices that can help people connect to God and hear His voice more clearly. He had no idea how much the very lessons he shared would be so important in his own journey through cancer. Reading Scripture, prayer and conversing with God took on a whole new level of meaning and intimacy as he walked through a difficult diagnosis and an aggressive treatment plan that physically and emotionally depleted him. But through it, he found a deeper connection with the shepherd of his soul.
In this tender conversation, Davey sits with Tyler to discuss why we need to engage in spiritual practices especially in hard times, what the mystery of the spiritual wilderness can reveal, and how God will use the interruptions of our suffering to show us what we cannot see in the ordinary moments of our life.
If you are walking through the wilderness and wondering how to find the direction you need, this episode will help you understand that while spiritual practices may not give us all the answers we long for, they will guide us into a deeper connection with the one who knows them.
How can you heal from what you can't erase? What do you do to transform your mental, emotional, and spiritual health from the inside out?
For author, speaker and coach Christopher Cook, losing his mom to a long battle with cancer and his own difficult Multiple Sclerosis diagnosis taught him the power of decision in pain. While he couldn't change the outcomes, learning to make the changes in his perspective was what propelled him forward as he healed from the grief and disappointment he faced. In his latest book, Healing What You Can't Erase: Transform Your Mental, Emotional, and Spiritual Health from the Inside Out, he offers readers a way forward in what feels impossible.
In this episode, Aubrey and Christopher talk about the choice for change in our stories that are unchangeable, why learning to surrender is such an important step, and how to untangle shame in the places where we need the most healing.
If you've ever wondered if healing is possible in the parts of your story that are never going to change, this episode will encourage you that no matter what, God is able to bring transformation in whatever you walk through.
How do we live in hope in light of our suffering? How can live as people who aren't overcome by our pain, but who are overcomers in our pain?
For pastor and author, Matt Chandler, his own journey in learning what it means to allow pain to push us towards hope began after a cancer diagnosis in 2009. Through his cancer journey and the surgeries and treatment that followed, he found himself growing in understanding as a pastor in leading others through their own suffering. In his most recent book, The Overcomers: God's Vision for You to Thrive in an Age of Anxiety and Outrage, Matt explores how the book of Revelation shows believers that they were made for this time and are called to be overcomers in whatever challenges they face.
In this episode, Davey and Matt talk about how we can be encouraged by those who have gone before us in obedience in challenges and difficulties, why our theology on suffering matters so much, and the importance of looking to the cross in light of our pain.
If you've ever struggled with feeling like a victim to the circumstances of your life, this conversation will inspire you to become an overcomer in an age of anxiety and outrage.
How do you keep choosing to truly live after losing one of the closest people in your life? What does it look like to show up when you're feeling the depths of grief?
For our Nothing is Wasted podcast co-host, author, pastor and speaker, Aubrey Sampson, learning how to allow life to come in again through the cracks of her pain after losing her best friend, Jenn, was difficult. Finding her way through the grief without having the person she could always process pain with felt impossible. And yet, through it all, Aubrey began to see how even in one of her greatest losses, there were moments where she could keep death from winning by choosing to find joy and life in what was in front of her. It was there that she could begin to see God's redemption in her heartache and fight back against darkness.
In this vulnerable conversation, Davey sits down with Aubrey to discuss how redemption often doesn't look like we think it will, how to begin to move forward after losing someone you love, and what to do when God's presence feels more like absence in your pain.
If you've ever experienced the loss of a best friend or have wondered how to even begin to live again in grief, this episode will inspire you to keep choosing to show up fully in the one, precious life you've been given.
How can the most difficult moments of our lives point us to our purpose? Where can we find God's will for our lives in the sufferings that we have faced?
Raleigh Sadler, author and founder of the anti-trafficking organization, Let My People Go, experienced a shift in his life's trajectory after the tragic loss of his best friend to cancer. From that painful moment, God seemed to align a path that he had never considered by helping the most vulnerable and yet his first task was leaning into his own vulnerability in the aftermath of his pain. Since then, Raleigh has led many churches in the fight against the injustice of human trafficking and has seen his own purpose emerge in the process.
In this conversation, Eric and Raleigh discuss how our vulnerability often unlocks our life's purpose, how the gospel applies to the most forgotten of people, and the way in which suffering forges deeper meaning in our lives than we could have ever imagined for ourselves.
If your pain has left you wondering if God could use you, this episode will show you that every moment of suffering is illuminating a path forward in helping others heal if you allow vulnerability to lead the way.
What do we do when there is no cure for our pain? How do we live with joy and thanksgiving when our physical reality is a chronic condition?
For author Andrea Herzer, learning to find joy in her chronic pain and incurable diagnoses was a feat. While her mind longed to be grateful, her physical condition made it seem impossible. And yet through her journey with chronic pain, cancer, and an accident, she was able to see God's kindness to her in the middle of her literal aches. Learning to rely on others and keeping her faith when God doesn't heal has been a struggle and yet through it, she has experienced more and more of the Lord's goodness in her life. It was through her own story that she was able to take the lessons God was teaching her and write Incurable Faith: 120 Devotions of Lasting Hope for Lingering Health Issues.
In this conversation with Eric, Andrea shares how to hold on to your faith when God doesn't answer your prayers in the way you wish He would, where Jesus can be found in our physical pain, and why we can't expect medical professionals to be our saviors.
If you're experiencing any form of suffering that is chronic in nature, this episode will remind you that God gives us unimaginable strength in our greatest weaknesses.
How do you find the words to pray when you are in the middle of loss and suffering? How do mark the holy moments, both big and small, in a special way?
Author Doug McKelvey and artist Ned Bustard have collaborated on three volumes of Every Moment Holy, books filled with liturgies to help people find the words in the joyful, the mundane and the most difficult moments of life. In their second volume, Every Moment Holy: Death, Grief, and Hope they offer prayers for those who are in the middle of life's most painful seasons. From helping those who are caregivers to offering words for those who are facing their own mortality, their book combines both visual art and words when it is hard to know what to even say.
Ned would eventually experience the art he was creating to help others serve as a balm to his own heartache in the loss of his wife. It was through the power of Doug's writing and Ned's creative process that Ned felt the power of this work in his own personal pain.
In this episode, guest co-host Eric Schumacher discusses with Doug and Ned how liturgies can help us find the words to pray, the creative process in creating meaningful work, and what happens when what you create for others ends up ministering to you.
If you've ever found it hard to pray in either the moments of grief or in the everyday moments, this conversation will teach you the power of liturgy in our journey as believers.
How can we begin to process our stories after a life-altering loss? Where can hope be found in the midst of insufferable pain? How do we connect the dots and find God's hand in our lives when suffering overshadows?
For Joan Kelley, those were difficult questions to answer after losing her teenage son, Will, to cancer. Yet, she found healing through looking at her life and the ways God has shown up, even in her worst pain. By going back in her own story, she has since been able to help walk alongside others in theirs by offering a listening ear or spiritual direction. And she has used what pain has taught her to bring hope and healing to those she encounters. While Joan knows she doesn't have all the answers, her journey has brought incredible lessons of faith, endurance, and how God can be trusted even in our darkest seasons.
In this episode, Davey sits down to talk with Joan about how everyone can use their unique wirings to bring hope to the hurting, why we have to make the time for our grief, and how processing your own story is pivotal in whatever healing path you are on.
Whatever the loss, Joan's story reminds us that we can all get to the place in our grief where we can still dare to hope.
How do you live life with the end in mind, especially when you are told your days are numbered? We all know that Scripture calls us to live life through the lens of heaven, but how do we really do that?
For Colleen Chao, finding out she had Stage 4 Cancer forced her to think about living the way God called her to in spite of the fact or perhaps because of the fact, that she is dying. Having expected life to go in a much different direction, Colleen has been learning to see the beauty in the most unexpected places like suffering and pain.
In this episode, Davey has a raw conversation with Colleen on seeing God's beauty in the darkness of suffering, the transformative power of gratitude, and how the blood of Jesus can keep us from dwelling in our regrets.
You don't have to have a life-altering diagnosis to be encouraged by Colleen's story of living life fully when heaven is closer than you anticipated.
What do you do when fear wants to rule your life after loss? How do you find freedom when anxiety threatens to steal your peace?
For Katie Piazza, it was the truth from God and His Word that set her free from what could have been a life full of unending anxiety. After losing her young daughter Colette to cancer, Katie faced a decision that would be difficult for any mother to make: would she allow fear and despair to rule over her life and home or would she choose the antidote to fear, Jesus? Though a long and difficult journey, Katie choose to place her hope in Christ even after such a devastating loss. From that, she has experienced freedom like never before.
In this episode, Davey sits down with Katie to talk about how to reconcile God's goodness in the midst of terrible circumstances, where to place our hope when life is hard, and how to live unafraid of the future in spite of all the pain and grief we face.
You don't have to know the deep ache of losing a child to encounter the incredible encouragement Katie's story and faith offers to anyone who wrestles with fear, despair or regret in a broken world.
In this episode, Megan joins Davey to talk about learning to take difficult seasons step by step, why knowing the truth of God's Word matters in the midst of it and how community can help us along the way in our pain.
Whether infertility is part of your story or not, this conversation will teach you how to walk in your own hurt over the loss of a dream as well as how to help others through theirs.
How can you experience God's breakthrough when your circumstances seem to go from bad to worse? For Traci McCombs, that journey was a long and difficult one as she endured several miscarriages, a season of infertility and a cancer diagnosis while also facing the challenges of being a military spouse.
Just when she thought all hope was lost, God broke through in unexpected ways. In this conversation, Davey and Traci sit down to talk about what it can look like to learn to trust God instead of the outcome of our situation and how God's peace and love are available to us no matter what unfolds in our story.
When we experience something traumatic, it affects far more than we often realize. We often carry our worst moments with us in both our minds and our bodies. Take Michelle Moore for example. Michelle spent much of her life carrying the trauma of watching her mother die at a young age. Entering motherhood herself caused Michelle to experience the trauma at a whole new level, but it seemed like Michelle’s worries were coming true as medical issues threatened both her life and that of her child at the same time. But through it all, Michelle learned to find God in the midst of pain, and from there to find healing from trauma both new and old. Michelle sits down with Davey to share some of her story and how she’s turned it into her purpose to help other mothers who face the same challenges they did.
Michele Cushatt was already no stranger to pain and hardship when she faced her biggest challenge yet. Michele made her living as a successful communicator, which made it that much more heartbreaking when a doctor told her she had cancer in her tongue. They removed the cancer, and it came back again and again, until Michele was left in a state of constant pain for months and with effects that would last the rest of her life. Michele sits down with Davey to talk about her new book Relentless and how she’s learned how to walk with God through so many trials.
“Cancer.” It’s the word none of us wants to hear on the other end of a phone call or a conversation. It’s the ultimate boogeyman of all disease, containing a thousand worst-case scenarios and unimaginable trials in just one word. When Joanna Dennstaedt was diagnosed with skin cancer, it sent her into an incredibly low place. But in the midst of her valley, Joanna found purpose in her pain. The valley that Joanna found herself in is all too common, and God was going to use her to minister to the people that she found herself walking alongside in this difficult season.
If you looked at Nick Charalambous several years ago, you’d never have guessed what his story is today. You’d see a young journalist is South Carolina with no interest at all in religion, writing a story about churches in the area because it was his job. Today, you’d see man with an incredible story of miraculous healing and a testimony to God’s power. Nick sits down with Davey to talk about coming to faith, overcoming cancer, and so much more.
Learn more about their story of faith and how they learned to walk with God in seasons where things didn't go as planned. To hear the bold way that they trust God and how they learned to lean on Him in the toughest of times will encourage and challenge you - no matter what season you're in.
Samantha Smith's conversation with Davey continues as they talk about some of the ways they've dealt with grief, the importance of community, finding new purpose in the wake of tragedy, and more
When Samantha Smith married her high school sweetheart Andrew, she never would have guessed that cancer would leave her a widow after just a few years. In this episode, Samantha sits down with Davey to talk about the shock of loss, mourning, and what to do when it seems like God disappoints you.
Masterclasses:
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No one expects to hear those words. You’ve got cancer. When your world seems to unravel with an unexpected diagnosis, it can feel impossible to feel hope in the midst of medical tests, chemotherapy, and survival rates. How can you face your greatest fears with purpose and hope?
Joanna Dennstaedt knows what it is like to receive news that changes everything. As a cancer survivor, she has walked the road between despair, fear, anger, trust, peace and hope. It wasn’t easy, but through her journey, she has found purpose in helping others in their cancer journeys.
In this masterclass, Unexpected Diagnosis: Facing Cancer with Purpose and Hope, you'll learn:
What to do after receiving a diagnosis of cancer for either someone you love or your own
Steps to follow God’s destiny for your life, even when it’s not the life you imagined
How to find true hope and healing in your cancer journey
No one expects to hear the word "cancer" but hope can be found even in the most unexpected diagnosis.
Resources
Website: https://www.joannadennstaedt.com/
https://www.radianthope.com/
Bonus Episodes:
Live Events:
Pain to Purpose Coaching
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Have you found this Pathway helpful? Be sure to check out our other Pathways for more inspiring stories of hope in the face of tragedy, trauma and pain.
Let these Pathways be a roadmap for you on your healing journey.
How can God's Word reveal His character to us in seasons of suffering? What can the stories of those in Scripture teach us as we walk through the valleys of pain?
Authors and Bible teachers Anne Graham Lotz and Rachel-Ruth Lotz Wright were raised on a firm foundation of faith and have spent their lives passionately teaching and sharing God's Word. Yet it was through their own personal trials—Anne's sudden loss of her husband and then her father, evangelist Billy Graham, as well as her cancer diagnosis, and Rachel-Ruth's series of heart-related health challenges and subsequent PTSD—that God illuminated powerful lessons about suffering through the story of Joseph.
Drawing from these experiences, Anne and Rachel-Ruth share the wisdom and hope found in their latest book, God Won’t Leave You There: Joseph’s Story.
In this conversation, Davey, Anne, and Rachel-Ruth discuss how our deepest messages often emerge from our own stories, how to overcome bitterness, and how to discover what God wants to teach us through our pain.
If you find yourself in a pit like Joseph, wondering where God is, this episode will remind you that no matter what you're facing, God won't leave you there.