I’ve had several people ask, either privately or in a comment on my posts lately, a very kind version of “What are you thinking, crazy lady? You’ve got enough going on, fighting cancer. Why are you deciding to talk politics now??”

And they have a point, LOL. (And no one put it that way, I’m being tongue-and-cheek and funny…)

But also…this, too, is important, and I’d like to explain.

I already talked about the year-long journey I’ve been on, and how a year ago, I was just angry and wanted to hold people accountable. How now, I want to understand and heal. Not to talk politics, but to talk about real issues, hard topics that matter. In that “A Time to Speak” post, there was one thing I didn’t go into on this journey.

October 2025.

If you’ve been following me for long, then you know that in 2024, I battled breast cancer. The fight took me into 2025, when I completed radiation treatments in January and then my “blocker” treatments in May. In July, I had my final reconstruction surgery after my bilateral mastectomy. I thought I was done. I thought I’d won.

Then came October, when a brain MRI for an unrelated pituitary issue revealed a tumor in my brain, in the right cerebellum. I know I’ve talked both here and on social media about how hard it hit, and my journey through that. But there are some things I didn’t get into, largely because they were too painful for my family.

I’m going to talk about them now because they are a big part of this.

In those two weeks between the discovery of the tumor and when we had definitive test results, my doctors were sure–SURE–I was in Stage 4 cancer. They were sure it was in my lymph nodes and all through my body. They were sure that palliative care was going to be my fate. They assured me they could keep the cancer in check and still give me years (probably), but let me try to put words to what was going on in my heart and mind.

In those two weeks, I was staring death in the face. Maybe not an immediate death–but that didn’t make it better. I was asking myself, “What if I only have two years left? Or five? Or even ten? What if I don’t get to see my kids get married? What if I spend those years sick and miserable? What if I can’t write the books God’s laid on my heart? What if this is the thing that kills me, and it happens soon?”

Even thinking these questions now makes me cry, guys. Because it’s no less present, just because the scans are clear. It’s no less a real question for me. And it comes with more questions too.

“What really matters?”

During those two weeks, I’ll be honest. I couldn’t read the news. I just…couldn’t. And it wasn’t because I didn’t care about the events or think they mattered. It was because I couldn’t handle the hatred I saw. Every time I glimpsed something, I just wanted to cry, “Don’t you understand? Don’t you understand that you are wasting time on hatred that could be spent on love? On tearing down instead of building up? Why? Why are you spending your precious minutes and hours and days and weeks and months on this? Don’t you see what a tragic waste that is?”

Because when you realize how finite your life is…you are keenly aware of how you’re spending it.

I’ve always given a lot to my legacy, to what I want to be remembered for. When I talk to authors about time management and marketing, that is in fact one of the things I invite them to consider as one of the guiding factors to how they prioritize their time and what governs their outreach.

I want to be remembered as someone who loves, not someone who hates.

I want to be remembered as someone who builds, not someone who tears down.

I want to be remembered as someone who listens, not someone who shouts.

I want to be remembered as someone who uses stories to speak Christ to hurting hearts, not to profit.

I want to be remembered as someone who focuses on others, not just herself.

And as I faced the very real possibility of a short life before me, I realized something else. It’s not enough to just not do the negatives. I have to actively do the positives. Because love isn’t the absence of hate–it’s something more than that, something that requires me to do, to act, to live it out. Similarly, building isn’t just the lack of tearing down. Listening isn’t just the lack of shouting. Not being greedy doesn’t mean working for Christ. And not focusing solely on me doesn’t mean I’m focusing on you.

It isn’t enough to not do. We have to do as well.

As someone who haaaaaaaates conflict (I literally feel sick to my stomach whenever conflict arises, and sometimes migraines even follow), it’s easy for me to just keep my head down. Simpler. 

But this is only peacekeeping. And Jesus didn’t say the “peacekeepers” were blessed. He said the peacemakers were. 

Making is also an action. This is something I’ve written about before, in a post called “Peace: Keeping or Making?” in which I observe the following:

We’re called to CREATE that soul-deep, “all is well” peace. We’re called to create it with love, with faith, with sacrifice, and with hope. Not with lies, compromises, insults, and division.

The peace of Christ is when you would rather die than deny Him–and rather be killed than kill.
The peace of Christ is when you help those who hurt you.
The peace of Christ is when you love the unlovable.
The peace of Christ is when you welcome the outcast, not cast out the one who has offended you.
The peace of Christ is when you greet an insult with a compliment.
The peace of Christ is when you seek to understand rather than to be understood.
The peace of Christ is when you answer a demand with a gift.

And do you know what happens when we do that? Jesus tells us, right there in the Sermon on the Mount.

We are called sons of God.
Heirs of the Kingdom of God.
Brothers and sisters of Christ.
We are given authority in Heaven and on Earth.
We are made like Him.

Peace, my friends, is something not just to seek, not just to preserve, but to make. It’s an active practice. And it doesn’t rely on pleasing people–it relies 100% on pleasing God by our interactions with them. On remembering that He loves them every bit as much as He loves us. And on treating them like they, too, are a son or daughter of God.

That ought to change everything.

So why am I tackling this now, in a year when I’m getting more chemo infusions (I really want to call these “blocker” treatments too, but the fact is that my team calls them chemo. Not full chemo. But they’re chemo.)? In a year when I’ve been promised I’ll be exhausted? In a year when I already have too much on my plate, given that?

Because this is the time I have. This is the time God stirred my heart to speak. This is the time the world is hurting for these conversations so, so much. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow. I don’t know where the world will be in a year, when I’m (hopefully and prayerfully) better again. I don’t know if I have another day or another century left on this earth (how’s that last part for optimism?).

But I have now. And so now is the time I will use for the most important things.

The stories He gives me. The people He gives me. The opportunities He gives me.

I will obey, and I will trust Him to provide where I lack. Maybe nothing will come of it. Maybe it’ll take off and I’ll have to bow out. Maybe it’ll just be me talking into what feels like empty space.

Or maybe it will take a cancer patient doing the work to convict other people to do it too. I don’t know. 

I just know that I don’t want to be remembered as someone who was silent when God asked her to speak. I don’t want my legacy to be burying my head, just like I don’t want it to be shouting at people. I want it to be modeling a better way. Showing my children that we can still engage with people, whether we agree with them or not. We can still love. And we can also exhort–from that place of love. We can seek to learn and pray that others will continue to do the same.

We can do better. But it starts with each of us. And when I stand before God–whether that’s soon or not–I want to be able to say, “I obeyed. I loved. I built. I served.”

Why now? Because I am so keenly aware that we’re never guaranteed “later.” And I don’t want to waste whatever time I have giving anything less than my whole heart to the world.