Hope for the Cancer+ Journey Podcast

Debbie Taylor Williams: You are not alone on your cancer journey. Welcome to Hope for the Cancer Journey Podcast. I'm your host, Debbie Taylor Williams, a Stage 3 lung cancer survivor. A cancer diagnosis is shocking and scary, but there is hope, as you'll hear from people's stories of their journey, tips for navigating the medical world, and the unwavering hope you can have in Christ. Let's walk this path together.

Today our special guest is Linda McConnico, who happens to be my older sister. She asked Jesus into her heart when she was nine years old and has loved Jesus as far back as she can remember. She always knew, as she has told me, that she would go to heaven one day. Then when she was 33, she had a wonderful encounter with the Lord when she made Him what she refers to as Lord of her life. She has three wonderful adult children, two grandchildren, and one precious great-granddaughter.

Linda, we are so glad to have you join us because you have many things to share. You are not only all of the things that I've already listed, but you have had an incredible career as the second female stockbroker in Dallas, Texas. You've been a commercial leasing, banking, insurance agent, the sales manager of a multi-million dollar corporation, a keynote speaker and Bible teacher, and the sales director for Mary Kay Cosmetics for the last 45 years. That is a lot, and we are looking so forward to all of the wisdom that you have to share with us today. Welcome.

Linda McConnico: Well, welcome! I'm excited, Debbie. I'm so excited for this journey that you're on right now. I went back and looked at some of the scriptures with hope in them. There are so many because we know that faith, hope, and love are what will last forever into eternity.

But one of them that I prayed over and over and over again through your journey is Psalm 118:17. I said, "Debbie will not die but live and declare the works of the Lord to the next generation," which is what you're doing. I praise God for that. Then we know that for in this hope we are saved, but hope that is seen is no hope at all. Debbie, there were times when we just could hardly see that hope, but we hope for that not we already had, but we hoped for what we wanted, and we waited for it sometimes not very patiently.

Debbie Taylor Williams: Linda, I know, and I love how you just immediately want to and are getting into all these verses of hope, which we do want to hear. But if we could back up for just a moment to help our listeners have some context and why I wanted to have you on as a guest today. When I discovered that I had lung cancer, I was actually in the process of helping you pack and move from Kerrville, where I live, to move to Virginia and the North Carolina area to be with your son and your family that you have there. We didn't realize though that I did have a diagnosis of lung cancer until you were already moved. What was that like for you when I called you and said, "Linda, those test results, that biopsy, I have lung cancer"? What was that like for you as my big sister? Because we have family members, big sisters and little sisters out there who are listening to this podcast, and they will more than likely be able to relate.

Linda McConnico: Okay, Debbie, it just happened again. When you said, "When I called you and said I have lung cancer," first of all, I couldn't breathe. Just then, when you repeated those words, I had to reach down for a breath and then my stomach knotted up, and it's still knotted up. I didn't want to move. We both knew that the Lord was calling me up here. I can remember you slinging those boxes and having this little bitty cough, which you went to the doctor for and was told it was just allergies. Then you called me and told me it was not allergies. It was Stage 3 lung cancer.

You know that Peter says, "Don't be surprised when trials come in this life," but I was surprised. I was shocked. I was absolutely shocked. I wish that I could tell your listeners that I said something really wise and spiritual and comforting, but I think you probably remember I just shouted, "No! No!" because when we hear the word "cancer," all the things that just flood us are shock. Like with you now, I was shocked that my husband died with a horrible disease. It wasn't cancer, it was COPD, but he smoked all his life, so we knew that that could cause that horrible disease.

But you've been the best little steward of your body. You had exercised, eaten right. It just couldn't be. It just couldn't be. But what came into me and just flooded my soul was fear and worry, and I thought of nothing comforting to say. I wanted to jump on a plane and come, as you know that's what you've always done when I've called out for you. It's been many, many times that in some horrible thing going on in my life, you came to me. I thought, "I want to go. I want to hold you. I want to hug you. I want to fix it." That's what we want to do when a loved one is hurting, in trouble, has some horrible something going on.

But I couldn't, and the Bible is full of action words. It's full of "do," but I couldn't do anything. I guess I've been praying so hard that the Lord would speak something through me that would comfort and help anyone who tuned into your podcast. The feelings of helplessness just flooded me. I could do nothing. I could do nothing. Then I thought of your family. You have the most amazing family: husband, son, daughter, grandchildren. I saw how they just enveloped you, how they just embraced you and cared for you and walked every tiny little step.

Keith, your husband, just miraculously became... and not because he couldn't do it, but because he'd never been called on to do it. He became the most incredible caregiver. I realized that there wasn't a place for me there, but I also realized that the greatest thing I could do was pray. You literally had thousands of people praying. So if I could say to anyone, reach out to everyone, everyone you know that's a prayer warrior. I saw myself as being your greatest prayer warrior.

I even set my watch, my alarm to go off when you were later on, when you were told that you were to take Progresso at 9:00 every morning. Besides the other prayers that I prayed for you all through the day and sometimes at night, at 9:00 I would see you taking that pill and thanking God, not asking Him anymore, but thanking Him that He was healing you every single day. I went through stages. I went through the worry, even though God says don't worry about anything, but pray about everything. I still worried.

So I learned how your cancer journey made me a stronger woman of faith. Your cancer journey made me realize how helpless I am, except for the power and the strength of the Lord in me, in the Holy Spirit living in me. And yes, I had to find hope. I had to find those words of hope in the scripture. And that's where I went, Debbie. I prayed for you to be healed. Of course, that's what we do. And the Lord said, "At the right time, I the Lord will make it happen."

And so that was a comfort to me that I knew that He was going to make it happen and that I was to be patient during all this test that you went through. Not just the test of your body, but the test of adversity that you would go through when strange things would happen. Your port would flip, and ports aren't supposed to flip. When the chemo was supposed to shrink the cancer and it didn't do its job, and then the radiation. Debbie, it was like every time you turned around with a new issue, it was an adversity. It didn't go well.

Healing scriptures became paramount in my prayers. It was like in Jeremiah 17:14, I would say, "Heal Debbie Jann, O Lord. She will be healed and I will praise You." Then there's so many wonderful words that the Lord gives us. I said, "Give strength to my sister. She's weary. Give Your power to her." Then I found in Mark where the Lord said, "Debbie, your faith has made you well. Go in peace and be healed of your cancer." I fought to find every word that I could comfort myself with so that in turn when you would call, I wouldn't just start bawling my eyes out because of love and concern for you.

Debbie Taylor Williams: Linda, I want to stop right there and just tell you, I know that the listeners are touched, so perhaps our friends can imagine how moved and touched I am by your words. But I would like for us to offer to our friends who are listening all of those verses that you have on hope and the ones that you used. That would be such a valuable gift if whether it was the person going through cancer or a family member or a friend who wanted to have those verses. If it's okay with you, I'll get those verses from you and we'll make them available as a free offer on our podcast page. Then what you went through will not only have been a blessing to me as you prayed those scriptures over me, but they will in fact be a blessing to thousands of our friends who are listening. Would you be able to provide that for us?

Linda McConnico: I would love to. I would love to because, Debbie, that's where it is. It's in the Word. There was a time when I wouldn't have understood that in the depth that I do today. So if I can speak to maybe some of your listeners that aren't walking with the Lord as closely as you do, that don't have the faith and the trust that you have, and you have been so instrumental in mentoring me in how to trust the Lord and walk through adversity.

If anyone's listening that's not there, they don't have that relationship with Jesus, then get your Bible and read these scriptures because He'll speak through His Word to your spirit and into your soul and into your heart. You'll be able to get up in the morning and instead of dragging around with a sad face, you'll be able to go on and persevere and pray and realize that it's not when we say, "The only thing I can do is pray." We all say that because we're doers. We want to be doers of the Word.

Sometimes we feel like we're not doing, but I promise you there's nothing that we can do that's more powerful than praying. We can't always be there to hug. We can't always be there to touch and comfort. But like I tell my daughter, we can't touch Jesus, we can't touch Debbie, who she adores, but we can be so close to them in our spirit. So I'd love to give you these scriptures on how to not worry, how to not be fearful.

Debbie Taylor Williams: Linda, that would be such a gift to all of us to have those available to look at and to share. I know that you have some favorites of those hope verses that you did want to share, that you have prepared to bring to us today. We're going to listen and we may have to ask you to slow down a little bit as you read some of those so we can absorb them. But I would love for us to all get to hear a few of those hope scriptures because they are powerful, they are true.

And when you say that we often say, "Well, there's nothing I can do but pray," you are right. That is a huge something, and I experienced God answering prayers based on you praying, based on others praying. God heard those scriptures. He says in James 5:16, "The effectual prayer of a righteous person availeth much." So when we are in a right relationship with God and we pray for others, He hears. Let's hear some of your hope scriptures.

Linda McConnico: I just started blabbing the minute that you said I could start talking about hope. Well, in Romans 15:13, God says, "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope." We don't feel these things sometimes, and we know that, but overcome those feelings by capturing our thoughts and being obedient to the words that God speaks into us.

In Romans 5:3 and 4, He says, "We glory in our suffering." That's a tough one. I never want to suffer. I didn't want Debbie to suffer a moment of her life. But He says, "Because we know that suffering produces perseverance, and perseverance character, and character hope." So it just brings to the front of my mind every time I hear the word "hope" now. It's more prevalent than it's ever been before. I love the name of your podcast, *Hope for the Cancer Journey*. The same scriptures, Debbie, because of other things that have happened in my life, the same scriptures are applicable.

God's Word is applicable in a unique way to every single adversity and trial and test we go through. It's like right now, as you know, my son, who I absolutely adore, is incarcerated. One of Satan's greatest weapons is addiction, and my son fell under that. He is locked up right now, but I talk to him all the time. Every day, almost, and it's always something to do with scriptures and what he's learning and growing closer to the Lord. I'm able to share these same scriptures that I'm sharing with you right now as far as hope, hope for when he'll be able to be free and be able to share what all the Lord has taught him after he was locked up and got his attention.

Hope is for everyone and every area of our life. My precious daughter is profoundly deaf and challenged with bipolar, but she lives with me now. For over 30 years, we prayed for her when she was estranged from us. Now she is this wonderful little Bible student that lives with me and we adore each other. You never give up. You never stop praying. You can begin to pray in a different way, instead of begging and asking for her deafness to be healed, I began to thank her for what He was doing in her life. So we can begin to exchange the beg for what we see as the best thing to submitting totally to His will.

I've thought of you, Debbie, so many times. The eyes of the Lord go to and fro throughout the whole world, seeking, looking for someone whose heart is fully surrendered to Him. I thought of you. That was one of the first things. How in the world did you get lung cancer? I thought maybe it's for those, maybe there's a few listening that have that gene that caused that to happen in your precious little body.

I'll tell you one scripture that I loved. I started thinking about God the Father when He breathed life into Adam. So I prayed, "Father, breathe your life, the same that you breathed into Adam, breathe your breath into Debbie's lungs." I would pray that over and over again. That's a prayer that everyone can have. We want the breath of the living God in us.

Then Job, I went to Job because he suffered so. I thought, "Well, that's an example that the Lord gave us in the Old Testament of how to suffer." I read, "The Spirit of God has made me, has given me the breath of Almighty God, He gives me life." And in Psalm, "Let everything that has breath praise the Lord."

There were days when I know you were afraid, I know you were worried because you're a wonderful little human being, but those wasn't words that you spoke. Our words are so powerful. You spoke words of life and you claimed that you would not die but live to proclaim the works of the Lord to the next generation. He has honored those words. Listeners, precious, precious listeners, be careful with your self-talk. I have taught and trained for many years sales people, and I warn them to be careful of their self-talk because our spirit hears. If we speak those words out loud, "I just can't, I'm going to die, I can't imagine living, I'm so afraid, I'm so worried," Satan hears the words that we speak out loud. His demonic forces are all around us. This disease came from the pit of hell. God hates disease, but He will allow sometimes something He hates because He will bring something that He loves out of that.

Debbie Taylor Williams: Well, Linda, you have so many good words for us. I want to have you on again because I have learned so much from you about the power of our words and the power of our thoughts. Of course, what you know and have conveyed to me and many others throughout the nation, you've been on stage with Zig Ziglar, you have spoken before thousands and thousands of people, our listeners would benefit and be blessed by you coming back and being on Hope for the Cancer Journey Podcast again.

We're going to schedule that. In the meantime, although we have to close right now, we will look forward to posting and having available the hope verses and the other verses that you have for us. Thank you so much, Linda. You are the most precious big sister I could have. I am blessed with another precious big sister also that the Lord has given me, but we are so honored to have you on our show today. Thank you.

Linda McConnico: Thank you, thank you, God bless you.

Debbie Taylor Williams: To our listeners, please subscribe and also share this episode. It could be the exact message someone needs today. Thank you for listening and keep looking up as you take hold of the hope you have in Christ. Remember Psalm 39:7, "And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in you."