It was the month of my 32nd birthday, and I was six months pregnant. Fall had drifted in with the crisp, cool air and my heart was in its happy place. Life was good.

I don’t know if you know this (I’m pretty sure you might), but life has its unfair share of ups and downs and just as quickly as your heart spills over with gladness, it can tumble over with surprising sadness. That’s what happened to me on this September day in my doctor’s office. Cancer isn’t supposed to happen with babies growing in your belly. But it did.

And just like that despair barged in and pushed hope out. Because hope that’s anchored to the good and the happy gets squeezed out when the imperfect presses hard. It drowns in the wake of bad news and flees in the face of adversity.

The news of my medical diagnosis shed light on the condition of my faith. Hope helps build our faith so when our hope is placed in anything other than God, the foundation of our faith crumbles easily. In the midst of life and busyness and ministry, I had unknowingly placed my hope and trust in my own abilities and strengths and all that was humanly controllable. This isn’t the kind of hope that remains. This isn’t the kind of faith that stands. This isn’t the kind of faith we’re called to. . . (To finish reading, please follow me to We Are His Daughters, where I’m excited to be a guest contributor today.)