We Didn’t Expect It

 On Thanksgiving Day, 26 November 2020, we were given a diagnosis no one ever wants to hear. My wife, Courtney, had a glioblastoma, an incurable tumour, already over five centimetres in diameter and obviously growing very rapidly, in the right frontal lobe of her brain. 

We didn’t expect anything like that. Courtney was relatively young (fifty-seven), healthy, active, and careful about nutrition. She was well adjusted, happy, and thankful. She was bringing nothing into her life (mentally, emotionally, or physically) that would contribute to significant health issues. 

So began a fourteen-month roller-coaster ride of joys and sorrows, laughter and tears, hopes and sadness—and singing and singing. I expected an intense trial of faith. Instead, God gave a simple assurance (mentally and emotionally) that, “Whatever happens, this is going to be okay.” My Bible calls it, “the peace of God, which passeth all understanding” (Philippians 4:7). 

We began writing emails asking for prayer—and they circled the globe. We didn’t anticipate that either. We were “nobodies,” not famous (and didn’t want to be). I pastored a very small church in Scotland’s Central Belt. We wanted our town to know Jesus but didn’t care if the wider world heard of us. As the children’s song says, we were just trying to let our light shine, “you in your small corner, and I in mine.” We’d never networked to become “known”—but our emails still traveled. 

Passing months brought another surprise. We heard, “We should encourage you, and instead, you always encourage and challenge us.” That wasn’t our goal; we just wanted to tell of God’s goodness to us. Near the end, a friend wrote, “These emails may communicate your greatest work of ministry.” Pastors read them to churches. People passed them on—to six people, to ten people, to even more—because they thought they were valuable.

After Courtney reached Glory, friends suggested compiling the emails to encourage others in life’s extremely difficult phases. While this book includes untold parts of the story, including some excerpts from my inbox, it primarily tells our story through those emails. 

The emails are mostly “raw.” I was tired, sometimes writing urgently, very much “in the moment,” with no time or energy to edit or refine the writing style. I didn’t even sign all of them. That is the reality of life with cancer, and I’ve left the emails mostly unedited to reflect that (torturing my poor editor!), though I corrected some grammar and spelling mistakes. I used British English in emails written from Scotland and in the chapters containing those emails. I used American English for US-based material. For privacy reasons, I changed all names (including ours) and edited some geographical and other details. 

The content of the emails, however, is unchanged. The emotions, the struggles, the songs we sang, the things we got wrong (whether because we misunderstood or were misinformed), those all remain. What God allowed us to think and feel is part of the story of His work in us, and this is not a medical history but a spiritual history of our passage through these days. May it help readers through their own spiritual journeys through heartrending crises. 

I wish I could cure glioblastoma and this world’s other heart-wrenching ills. I can’t even offer the peace we had— it’s not mine to give. Perhaps, though, this book may help draw you a step closer to the God who fills hearts with peace beyond human understanding. There is no One better to have with you when your world turns upside down. He can help you sing too.