Donna Richardson had never smoked a cigarette in her life. Not one. She was a high school guidance counsellor in Atlanta, Georgia. She jogged three times a week. She ate well. She went to church. She did everything right.
The lung cancer came anyway.
The Diagnosis
It was a persistent cough that would not go away. Donna assumed it was allergies — Atlanta is not kind to sinuses. But after three months, her doctor ordered a chest X-ray. The X-ray led to a CT scan. The CT scan led to a biopsy. The biopsy led to the phone call.
Lung cancer. In a woman who had never smoked.
The oncologist explained that approximately twenty percent of lung cancer cases occur in never-smokers. It was not as rare as people assumed. But the explanation did nothing to soften the blow.
"People looked at me differently when I said lung cancer," Donna said. "Everyone assumes you smoked. I could see it in their faces — the judgment, the assumption. So I found myself defending myself to everyone: I never smoked. As if that mattered. As if the cancer cared whether I was a smoker."
The Fear
The fear arrived with a specific companion: shame. Not rational shame — Donna had done nothing wrong. But the social stigma of lung cancer, combined with the terror of the diagnosis itself, created a double burden.
She did not want to tell people. She did not want the looks. She did not want the questions. So she kept it small — her sister, her best friend, her pastor. Nobody at school. Nobody at church beyond the pastor.
The isolation made the fear worse. She was fighting the scariest battle of her life with almost no one standing beside her.
The night before her surgery — a lobectomy to remove the affected portion of her lung — Donna lay in her hospital bed at Emory University Hospital and stared at the ceiling. It was 11pm. The lights were dimmed. Machines beeped. Someone in the next room was snoring.
Donna was as afraid as she had ever been in her life.
The Encounter
She started to pray. Not a structured prayer. A desperate one. The kind of prayer that sounds more like a conversation with someone you have known your whole life but have never been this honest with.
"God, I am terrified. I am alone in this bed and I am terrified. I did not do anything to deserve this. I do not understand why this is happening. But I am asking you — please. Be here. Be here with me right now because I cannot get through this night alone."
Donna described what happened next as the most unexpected thing that had ever happened to her.
"Peace. That is the only word. It was like someone had poured warm honey over my entire body. Every muscle that had been clenched for weeks just... released. My jaw unclenched. My shoulders dropped. My breathing slowed. And I felt — I know this sounds crazy — I felt held. Like I was a child being rocked."
She fell asleep. Mid-prayer. Not from exhaustion — she had been wide awake. From peace. A peace so complete, so enveloping, that her body simply surrendered to it and she slept.
The Healing
Donna woke up at 5am to the nurse preparing her for surgery. She was calm. Not pretending — genuinely, deeply calm. The nurse noticed. "You slept well," she said, surprised. Donna smiled. "Someone was looking after me."
The surgery was successful. The surgeon removed the cancerous lobe of her lung. Follow-up testing showed clean margins. Subsequent scans were clear.
Donna recovered over the following months. She told people at school about the cancer — all of it, including the lung cancer stigma and the shame. She told people at church. She stopped hiding.
"The fear and the shame left together," she said. "That night in the hospital, God did not just take the fear. He took the shame. He reminded me that I had nothing to be ashamed of. And He loved me so completely in that moment that I could feel it in my bones."
What This Means for You
If your cancer came with shame — if people assume it is your fault, if you feel judged, if you are hiding your diagnosis because you cannot bear the looks — hear this: you have nothing to be ashamed of. Nothing.
And if you are lying in a hospital bed the night before surgery, terrified and alone — you are not alone. Donna Richardson was terrified at 11pm and asleep by midnight. Not because the surgery was cancelled. Not because the cancer disappeared. Because God showed up in that room and loved her so completely that the fear could not hold.
Pray the honest prayer. The messy one. The one that says exactly what you are feeling. And then let the peace come. It comes like honey. Like warmth. Like being held.
You can sleep tonight. God is awake.
