Author Twila Belk had a lot on her plate when she received her breast cancer diagnosis. The author and speaker, also known as the “Gotta Tell Somebody Gal,” was serving as both caregiver and primary breadwinner for her family plus dealing with a teenage son’s significant issues when a mammogram and subsequent biopsy revealed the disease.
At the time, she had no health insurance, Belk tells host Marti Pieper on the “Hope Through Cancer: Breast Cancer Awareness Emphasis” podcast series on Charisma News. But, she says, “through a series of God-events and connections, He got me connected with a program, a state program that pays for breast cancer.” In fact, her entire journey has provided her with multiple opportunities to do what she loves: brag on God.
“Shortly after I received my diagnosis, the words, ‘I will not die but live; I will not die but live’ kept running through my mind as I lay in bed,” Belk says. “I found in Psalm 118:17, it says, ‘I will not die but live, and will proclaim what the Lord has done.’ And so I grabbed hold of that as God’s promise to me. … and it was my theme and purpose as I moved forward on that unknown path. … I made it my purpose to brag on God and to look for the God in it.”
And that purpose transformed the difficult months ahead, Belk says. “One of the biggest things I’ve learned is that whatever we focus on becomes magnified. So I wanted to magnify God through this, not cancer—because whatever we focus on, that can become overwhelming to us, and it can control our life. So if I focused on the cancer, or the financial part, or the caregiving, or my son’s issues, or this or that or whatever, that could become overwhelming to me, but I chose to focus on God. …
“And I saw who He is; He just came and showed up in so many ways,” Belk, now on the other side of her cancer surgery and treatment, says. “And it’s through those circumstances, through cancer and through a lot of these bad things that I know who God is.”
To hear more of Twila Belk’s inspiring breast cancer story and how God met her needs all along the way, check out this podcast. {eoa}
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