Why This Blog Exists
Come sit with us.
There’s a kind of friend who doesn’t flinch. You tell her the true version — the unedited one, the part you were sure would be too much — and she just leans in and says, me too, tell me more.
We want to be that for you.
Ann and Jenny — friends first, writers second, both of us still figuring it out.
Here’s the plain truth of it: between the two of us, we’re walking through chronic illness and cancer. The scans and the waiting rooms. The bodies that stopped cooperating. The phone calls that split life into before and after. The soaring hope and the crushing disappointments.
We’re not writing from the far side of all that, tidy and finished. We’re writing from inside it and just past it — with the mud still on us — because that’s where most people actually live, and it’s lonelier, harder out here than anyone lets on.
And somewhere in the middle of it, we kept finding God. Usually not in the way we asked for. Almost never on our timeline. But He keeps showing up.
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.”
— 2 Corinthians 1:3–4
That verse isn’t decoration. It’s the assignment. Whatever we’ve been carried through, we hand it forward. Because Scripture says to bear one another’s burdens (Gal. 6:2), and illness humbles you into needing each other.
Who We’re Writing For
If you love someone who’s sick
If you love someone who’s sick — and you’re scared, and tired, and afraid to say either of those things out loud because you’re supposed to be the strong one — pull up a chair. There’s room for you here.
If you’re in it right now
If you’re in it right now — mid-treatment, mid-diagnosis, mid-flare, mid-we-need-to-run-more-tests, don’t have any answers — you are the reason we started. We know the specific exhaustion of managing yourself and everyone else’s feelings about your body. We know what it’s like to be brave in public and undone in the car afterward.
If you’re tired of “I’m fine”
And if you’re just tired of saying “I’m fine” and meaning something else entirely — welcome. You don’t have to perform here.
What You Can Expect From Us
Real and raw.
We’ll tell the truth, including the parts that don’t wrap up neatly. We’re not going to polish grief until it shines or hand you a verse like a bandage. Hope that can’t survive a bad scan isn’t worth passing along.
Honest, not hopeless.
There’s a difference between telling the truth about suffering and drowning in it. We’ll name the hard thing — and then we’ll tell you what we’re standing on.
Empowering.
You are not a passive patient in your own life. We’ll write about asking hard questions, advocating for yourself, keeping your own record, saying no, and finding your voice in rooms where it’s easy to lose it.
Careful with Scripture.
We’ll do our homework and handle the Bible with reverence and in context. When we don’t know something, we’ll say so instead of dressing up a guess.
Jesus at the center.
Our stories are the frame. He’s the picture. If you ever finish a post thinking mostly about us, we’ve done it wrong.
Honest with each other.
We read each other’s words before you do, and we tell each other the truth kindly. We’d rather be sharpened than flattered.
Protective of other people’s stories.
Ours we’ll share freely. Everyone else’s — our families, our friends, the people in the next chair over — we’ll share carefully, with permission or not at all.
Not your medical team.
We’ll point you past us: to Scripture, to your church, to your doctors and nurses and counselors. We’re a friend on the road, not a substitute for care. Nothing here is medical advice.
Where to Begin
Before you read anything else, you deserve to know where we’re standing: What We Believe →
Our Hope
That you’d read something here, let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding, and think: okay. I’m not the only one.
That you’d feel less alone on a day when alone is the worst of it.
And that you’d look up — past the screen, past us — to the One who’s been waiting to gather you in His arms the whole time.
Come sit with us.
To God alone be the glory.