I Was Given a 1% Chance to Live: How God Healed Me of Terminal Brain Cancer

My story begins with the words: terminal brain cancer.

It runs through a seven-hour surgery, a battlefield of faith, months of aggressive spiritual and physical stewardship, and doctors saying something they never expected to say to me: “Your brain is clear.” But that is not where the story ends, because just as I was preparing to release this book, just as I believed the testimony was ready to be placed in the hands of people who needed hope, I began having seizures.

The book was delayed. At first, that delay felt like an interruption. But now I see it as an assignment. Because God was not finished writing this testimony in me. He was not finished burning His Word into my heart. He was not finished teaching me what it means to live from authority instead of theory; not borrowed revelation; not a sermon I had preached before, but authority that had been tested in the fire.

I ended up needing another brain surgery. The surgery was successful in what it needed to address, but when I woke up, I had sensation in my right arm and hand, but no motor control. I could feel them, but I could not move them. In that moment, after already walking through terminal brain cancer, remission, testimony, and now another surgery with another physical battle in front of me, I had a choice. Would I let this delay discourage me? Would I allow my physical condition to define my spiritual reality? Would I let my mouth agree with fear? Or would I stand on the Word of God again?

The Word Became My Medicine

During this time, the only phrase that kept rising up in me was, “But God.” Not as a religious cliché. Not as a hopeful slogan, but as a spiritual line in the sand. But God. Because the facts were real, but they were not final. The symptoms were real, but they were not sovereign. The weakness in my arm and hand was real, but it did not have the authority to rewrite what God had already spoken over my life.

That season did something in me that I will thank God for forever. It solidified His Word in my heart and in my mouth. The Word became my medicine, and I took it three times daily: morning, noon, and night. I didn’t take that medicine casually, or symbolically; not as a religious tra-dition, but rather I took the Word as life. I took it as truth. I took it as covenant, and I took it as medicine for all my flesh. Proverbs 4 says God’s words are life to those who find them and health (medicine) to all their flesh. So, I began to understand, deeper than ever before, that the Word of God is not merely something we read. It is something we receive. It is something we believe. It is something we speak, and it is something we live from. When the Word gets rooted in the heart and released through the mouth, mountains begin to move! Jesus said:

For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, “Be removed and be cast into the sea,” and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore, I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them (Mark 11:23-24 NKJV).

Notice what Jesus said. He did not only say to pray about the mountain. He said to speak to the mountain. He said to believe in the heart. He said to say with the mouth. He said the mouth and heart must come into agreement. That was no longer just a doctrine to me. It became my daily practice. It became my medicine and the weapon of my warfare. It became my pathway of walking through the valley without agreeing with death.

If you are currently battling cancer or praying for a miracle in the life of a loved one, my first encouragement is simple:

Do not allow your focus to shift to a future of pain, suffering, and an early death. Choose to focus on life.

Because cancer not only attacks the body. It tries to take over your imagination. It tries to hijack your words. It tries to steal the picture of your future before you ever take your next step. It tries to make you rehearse loss and speak fear. It tries to turn a diagnosis into an identity.

But Jesus did not tell us to agree with mountains. He told us to speak to them. Because you are reading this, I want you to let my story wash over you, not because my timeline is a formula, but because testimonies encourage the heart, inform the mind, and nourish the soul. When you witness another person’s breakthrough, faith rises again. Hope starts breathing. Courage comes back to the surface. Let me take you into the middle of it where God met me; and where He will meet you too if you allow Him.

The Symptoms

It did not start with a dramatic collapse, but rather with subtle disruptions, little glitches in a life that looked normal on the outside. I had trouble articulating words that had previously come easily. I started dropping things for no reason. Playing catch with my boys (something that brought me joy) suddenly felt off, like my coordination was no longer tracking the way it should.

At first, I did what most people do. I explained it away. Stress. Over-work. Sleep deprivation. Too much on my plate. But deep down, I knew something was very wrong. Then came the emergency room visit just before Thanksgiving of 2024. In a matter of hours, the ground shifted beneath me. The scans, the waiting, the pinched conversations in hallways that were too noisy and too quiet all at the same time. And then…the diagnosis: Grade 4 Diffuse Astrocytoma.

Aggressive brain cancer. No cure. Then the number that tries to lodge itself into your mind like a nail: I was told I had a 1 percent chance of being alive in eight months, and that was if I followed their standard of care. Let me pause here to be candid. A cancer diagnosis is not just information. It is an event. It is psychological detonation. It tries to hijack your imagination, your words, your relationships, your future. It aims for your identity. In that moment, you do not just hear disease, you hear death.

And what made it even stranger for me is that I was a healthcare provider. I had spent more than two decades helping people navigate hard diagnoses. I knew the language. I knew the protocols. I knew the statistics. But when it was my body, my brain, my family, it did not feel clinical; it felt personal. This is the point when every person must decide what voice gets the final authority, because the report may be real; the scan may be real; the symptoms may be real; but the question becomes:

What is final?

Is the diagnosis final? Is the prognosis final? Are the statistics final? Or is the Word of the living God final? This is not denial, it is authority. It is the believer’s decision to live under the lordship of Jesus Christ—not under the lordship of fear.

The Moment of Decision

In those first moments after diagnosis, fear tries to rush in like a flood, and it usually comes with a script: “This is the end.” “This is how it goes.” “Prepare for loss.” “Start saying goodbye.” But something rose up in my spirit. Not denial, but rather decision. I made a choice:

I will not accept this as my ending.

Trust became the spark that ignited my faith. When medical science reached its limits, I had to choose what every person facing cancer must choose at some point, will I trust what I can see?

Or will I trust the God who sees what I cannot yet see?

Trust is acknowledging God in the middle of the storm, not after it passes. I acknowledged Him in mine, but I also began to understand something deeper. Faith does not merely acknowledge that God exists. Faith takes God at His Word. Faith believes that what Jesus accomplished is greater than what the enemy has attempted. Faith refuses to let symptoms have a louder voice than Scripture. Faith does not pretend the mountain is not there. Faith obeys Jesus and speaks to the mountain. That is why Mark 11 became so real to me. Jesus said, “Whoever says to this mountain….” He did not say, “Whoever complains about this mountain….” He did not say, “Whoever studies this mountain until fear becomes their meditation….” He did not say, “Whoever repeats what the mountain says….” He said:

“Speak to it.”

And do not doubt in your heart. Believe that what you say will come to pass. That means the heart and the mouth matter. The heart is where faith is established, and the mouth is where faith is released. I had to learn to bring my words into agreement with God’s Word. Not once. Not in a surge of emotion, but daily, repeatedly, over and over again until my spirit became more aware of truth than my mind was aware of fear.