The Great Physician has the Final Say

“You have cancer.”

It’s a simple three-word sentence. But those three words keep many awake at night, wondering what to do if a doctor ever says them. Those three words can change the course of a life.

When Rebecca “Becky” R. Taylor, 50, heard those words from her doctor in fall of 2020, she was speechless.

“I just didn’t know what to say. Devastation. That’s the word. It was a very crushing feeling.”

What began as a pain in her side quickly spiraled into much more. From her work as a nurse, Taylor believed the discomfort might be coming from her gallbladder. But when she first visited her doctor to address it, they found a tumor on her adrenal gland that they presumed was benign. After operating, however, they found out it was cancer.

Because the operation took place during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Taylor’s husband, Curtis G. Taylor, 56, was forced to wait for her in the hospital alone.

“That was pretty excruciating.”

When the doctor came to deliver the news, Curtis says it was like a “gut punch.” The pair shares five children and nine grandchildren. Curtis was the one to inform them about the cancer.

“It felt like a slap in the face,” he adds. “There’s no way to really put it into words.”

Further imaging revealed that the cancer had metastasized to her lungs. Due to the spread, Taylor was diagnosed with stage four cancer. Her medical team felt she had six to 18 months left to live, at best.

“I have a strong faith, and I know that God is in control, but I can’t even describe just the crushing feeling,” she explains. “The not knowing what would happen and how long I would be here, it was very difficult, probably one of the most difficult things I’ve had to do.”

Taylor was not given the option to have further surgeries or take chemotherapy. Instead, doctors recommended she begin taking immunotherapy, which is administered intravenously, similarly to chemotherapy, but without all the same side effects. The prognosis was clear: Taylor would never be cured of her cancer. Medical treatment would not heal her completely, it would only lengthen her life. But immediately, the Taylors took their crisis to the Lord in prayer, trusting Him for the ultimate outcome.

Thomas J. Carver, 46, the lead pastor of LifeBridge Assembly of God in Oak Hill, West Virginia, was stunned by the news.

“You want to react from a place of faith, but you end up reacting from both faith and emotion,” he says. “We’re emotional people. That’s the way God made us.”

“I give Becky and Curtis a lot of credit,” he adds. “Although there was fear and concern there underlying, there was also — Whatever God wants to do, we’re going to trust him with that.”

The LifeBridge community gathered around the Taylor family, asking God to heal Becky. During this time, Carver was reminded of the story of Hezekiah, when he prayed for God to extend his life, and the Lord granted him 15 more years.

“I told Becky and Curtis, ‘I’m not praying necessarily for a specific number. I’m just simply praying that God will extend your life, whether that’s 10 years or 50 years.’ I’m thankful for four years.”

As Taylor navigated the beginnings of her treatment journey, doctors remained insistent that her outlook was grim.

Curtis recalls one doctor telling him, “You need to realize this is palliative care only. Your wife is going to die.” But Curtis remembers, “I would say to him, ‘You might be a great doctor and all, but you’re not the great physician.’”

Today, all that’s left of Taylor’s cancer is a small nodule on the left upper lobe of her lung, which one specialist believes could potentially be only scar tissue. And because the cancer hasn’t grown in recent months, her medical team has felt comfortable ceasing her immunotherapy treatment. They will not say, however, that she has achieved remission.

But despite every hardship and unknown, Taylor sees purpose from God in the midst of her suffering. She’s been able to come alongside other women in her community facing a cancer diagnosis.

“I believe that God wants me to be for them what I didn’t have,” she says. “Somebody that truly understood the things that I was going through.”

“There are a lot of people in their family and in our community that need the Lord, and I’m believing that this is going to be a testimony to them,” Carver says. “It already has been because of their trust in God through all of this.”

To those facing a similar trial, Taylor cautions them to, “Never give up. God can do what he wants to do.”

“The doctors think that they are all-knowing,” she says. “Only God is all-knowing. He knows when my days are up. He has the final say.”