Cancer is one of life’s most painful and terrifying experiences. It can shake your identity, strain your relationships, and leave you asking questions you may have never voiced before: Why is this happening? Is there hope? Am I alone? 

In times of suffering, we look for love and hope, lifelines to hold onto when everything else is uncertain. Family and friends rally around you with unwavering support. Doctors care for you. Encouraging words lift your spirits.

But sometimes, even surrounded by others, a deeper emptiness remains. A feeling that there’s still something missing. You may sense that even with all the love from others, as strong or amazing as it is, you’re not experiencing everything. It’s like trying to see in a dark room with only the glow of a candle.

And maybe, in a quiet moment, you’ve wondered: Is there more? Is there a greater love, a deeper hope, something more I was made for?

Yes. There is.

Candlelight vs. sunlight

We were all created to experience love. Not only love from others, but love directly from God. The kind that doesn’t fade in crisis. The kind that holds us in weakness. The kind that speaks peace even in the face of death.

I felt this love firsthand during an extended stay in a burn intensive care unit (BICU) with first, second, and third-degree burns on my legs, arms, hands, and face. While in the darkest situation I had experienced, I felt God’s presence with me and his love more than I ever had, giving me a strong sense of hope and peace. I can assure it is real. He allowed me to know that he was with me and would help me through the crisis.

My time in the BICU led me to want to get to know God. While I believed in him, I didn’t know him well. A fire was lit in me to learn who he is, to get to know him in a greater way, and even get close to him.

Thankfully, my mom was there to talk to me about my situation and about God. She stayed with me, and I’m grateful for her taking such incredible care of me. Her loving, positive, and peaceful presence was another way that I felt loved. I think we were made for both: Love from someone who truly cares and God’s love poured into our hearts by his Spirit, which only comes through a relationship with him.

Many people were praying for me, and I believe this made a big difference. The doctors marveled at my recovery and even canceled the surgery they had planned for a large skin graft on my leg to cover third-degree burns. To their amazement, I was healing from burns they thought I would not. My skin is not the same as it was, but I’m thankful for how well I healed.

Living in separation

Thinking back to my time with God in the hospital reminds me of Romans 2:4, “God’s kindness leads us to repentance.” His pursuit in our brokenness can, if we let it, draw us to him.

But here’s the hard truth: apart from a relationship with God, we live in separation from the very source of love we were made for. Like candles in a dark room, we catch glimpses, a moment of kindness, a hug from a friend, even a loving spouse. But those are only reflections of a deeper love that we were made to live in, like sunlight flooding a room.

There is a reason we are blocked from experiencing this love.

“But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear” (Isaiah 59:2).

Sin is what separates us from God’s love.

This isn’t simply about tallying “good” vs. “bad” deeds. It’s about a broken relationship. All of us, by nature, have chosen in some way to live apart from God and to go our own way. And in doing so, we cut ourselves off from the fullness of love and life God intended. You may feel that separation now, especially in the silence and in the pain. But separation doesn’t mean abandonment.

A love that still reaches

The good news, the best news, is that God has never stopped loving you. Even if you’ve ignored him, doubted him, or pushed him away, God’s heart is still for you. You were made in his image. You matter to him. And he wants more for you than just flickers of love and momentary hope.

“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

God’s love reached all the way down into our broken world when he sent Jesus. Not to condemn, but to rescue, heal and restore. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection, the separation between you and God can be healed. He offers you a relationship, not a religion. Peace, not just positive thinking. Lasting hope, not just temporary comfort.

When you begin a relationship with Jesus, allowing him to be both Lord and Savior, you are reconciled to God. In that moment, his love is poured into your heart through the Holy Spirit.

“And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us” (Romans 5:5).

You move from candlelight to sunlight. From spiritual death to real and eternal life.

Real love. Real hope. Even now.

Four realities about God’s love

God doesn’t promise that following him will take away every pain. Cancer may still be hard. The treatments, the uncertainty, the toll on your body and emotions, none of that is easy.

But through it all, when you have a relationship with God:

1. You are never alone.

“Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).

2. His strength upholds you when yours falters.

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

3. His love reaches the places that nothing else can.

“[I pray that you] may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:18-19).

4. His hope outlasts this life.

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you” (1 Peter 1:3-4).

Receive hope now

You were made for this love and hope. And it’s available to you today, no matter the prognosis.

If you’ve never come into a relationship with God through Jesus, now, even in this moment, you can. He is not far. He is not angry. He is waiting with open arms. As it says in the Bible, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).

For a next step, see “A simple but life-changing invitation,” at the end of this article.

Cancer can take much from you–your strength, your plans, and your sense of control. But it does not have to take away your hope. And it can never touch the love of God once it fills your life.

Don’t settle for candlelight. You were made for the sunlight of God’s love.

A simple but life-changing invitation

You can talk to God right now and tell him you need him. Acknowledge that you’ve been living apart from him. Ask God to forgive you, to lead you, and to pour His love and hope into your life through His Spirit.

He will.

You can pray something simple. “Jesus, I’ve been running my own way, but I need You as my Savior and Lord. Forgive me, draw me close, and fill me with Your love and hope through Your Spirit.”

If you prayed this prayer (or something similar), you have invited God and his love into your life. For help with getting to know God better, please click one of the links below.