🎙️ One Day at a Time: What I Learned After the Doctor Said “Melanoma”
By Jimmie Aaron Kepler
It was about this time in June 2015. The kind of hot Texas day where the pavement wavers like a mirage and the sky looks too bright for bad news. But bad news doesn’t wait for cloud cover.
We were sitting in a cold room full of diplomas and sterile walls when the doctor cleared her throat and gave me a look I’ll never forget. She said, “Your wife has advanced stage three melanoma. We’ve scheduled surgery in two days.”
I didn’t say much. Just nodded while my insides twisted like barbed wire.
That word—melanoma—hit like a fist to the gut.
And it came two years after her first diagnosis: neuroendocrine carcinoid. That’s the same rare cancer that took down Steve Jobs, and now it was taking its time with my bride.
They told us plain, looked my wife in the eye: This is serious. I’ll do the surgery to remove the melanoma. If the it recurs after the surgery, it will kill you. I want you to understand this will be terminal. You will die, and even if by some miracle the melanoma progresses slowly, then the neuroendocrine carcinoid will take your life. She added, You need to get your affairs in order.
You don’t ever forget hearing something like that. (Sadly, only ninety days later a PET scan showed the melanoma had recurred.)
The World Got Quieter After That
Everything slowed down. Even the birds outside seemed to hush. You don’t think about grocery lists or emails after news like that. You think about holding her hand. About how your children and her sisters are gonna take it. About how long you’ve got left to tell her all the things you meant to say over the years.
I won’t walk you through the medical side of it. That was her fight, her pain, and she bore it with a kind of grace that still humbles me. She had her team of doctors, specialists, and treatments stacked high like a pile of phone books. But my focus wasn’t on prescriptions or procedures.
I went looking for God.
My Bible Became My Lifeline
I turned to the scriptures like a thirsty man turns to a well. I’d wake up early, stop on my way to work at Starbucks for a blonde roast coffee, and sit with the Word in one hand and my aching heart in the other.
And over and over, one verse kept coming back like a faithful friend:
“Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”— Matthew 6:34 (KJV)
That’s Jesus talking. He wasn’t sugarcoating life—He was giving us a way to survive it.
What That Verse Meant to Me
I read it a dozen times before it sank in:
Today is enough. Don’t drag tomorrow’s troubles into it.
I couldn’t fix her diagnosis. Couldn’t plan a perfect future. But I could hold her hand on that day. I could sit beside her while she napped. I could whisper prayers when she was too tired to say her own.
When I stopped staring into the fog of what might be, I started seeing what was—God’s presence, right in the middle of the mess.
A Prayer from a Worn-Out Caregiver
Father in Heaven, help me live in the now.
Let me see You in this moment, even when the moments are hard.
Help me let go of tomorrow’s worries and take hold of the grace You’ve given me today.
I don’t know what’s coming next, Lord, but I know You’ll be there when it does.
And that’s enough for me. Amen.
Looking Back
My wife passed in 2018. And though the pain of her absence lingers, so does the peace I found in that verse. God didn’t promise easy. He promised enough—enough strength for today, enough grace for the heartache, enough hope to keep walking.
So if you’re facing a long road, whether it’s your diagnosis or someone else’s, take it from a fella who’s walked it slow: God is in the middle of it.
Take a breath. Take His hand.
And take it one day at a time.
🕊
Still trusting.
Grace and peace,
Jimmie
💡 Need More Encouragement for the Journey?
If today’s message about chronic illness struck a chord, you’re not alone. I’ve walked that road—and I wrote a devotional book especially for folks like us navigating the long, winding path of chronic illness.
Whether you’re facing the diagnosis yourself or walking beside someone you love, this book offers heartfelt prayers, biblical wisdom, and honest encouragement for each step of the journey.
👉 Looking for hope, peace, and direction?
You can learn more and grab your copy right here: [Prayers: Prayers for the Chronically Ill: 60 Prayers or Caregiving: Biblical Insights From a Caregiver’s Journey ]
Because you don’t have to walk through this alone—and God’s love still speaks into the hard places.
Did you enjoy this article? You can find more of Jimmie Aaron Kepler’s books at Jimmie’s books available in paperback, ebook, audio, and large print
