Fiona Johnston — Fi to everyone who knows her — was living the kind of life that looks full on the outside but is held together by coffee, logistics, and sheer willpower on the inside. She was thirty-two years old. A specialist pharmacist working in a maternity hospital in Glasgow. Married to Dez. Mother to Amber, Cody, and Finn. Finn was five months old.
Then the diagnosis came. Early 2022. A rare and aggressive type of stage 3 bowel cancer.
The Storm
There is no preparing for that kind of news. Not when you are thirty-two. Not when you have three children under six. Not when the youngest is still being weaned. The world contracts to a single point: will I be here to see them grow up?
Fiona was a pharmacist. She knew what the words meant. She knew what stage 3 meant. She knew what "rare and aggressive" meant. She was not protected by ignorance.
The Surprise
What happened next surprised everyone — including Fiona.
Her faith did not collapse. It soared.
Not in the way that looks like denial. Not in the way that pretends everything is fine. In the way that happens when someone who has believed in God for years suddenly needs God more than they ever have — and discovers that He is exactly as real as they hoped He would be.
Fiona described it simply: "When everything was turned on its head and I was completely out of control of the situation, I chose to respond by placing all my faith and hope in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit."
The Community
Prayer came from everywhere. Her church. Her colleagues. Her family. People she had not spoken to in years. The kind of prayer that does not ask for a specific outcome but trusts a specific God.
Fiona also used humour. The kind of dark, honest, Scottish humour that refuses to let cancer have the last word. She was not pretending the fear did not exist. She was choosing not to let it win.
From the Middle of the Storm
What makes Fiona Johnston's testimony unusual is that she shared it from the middle of the storm — not from the other side. Her article in Premier Christianity was published in 2022, while she was still in treatment. She did not wait for a neat ending. She did not wait for the all-clear scan. She wrote from inside the fire and said: "Cancer has caused my faith to soar."
That takes a different kind of courage. It is easy to testify when the diagnosis is behind you. It is another thing entirely to testify while you are still living it.
What This Means for You
If you are in the middle of something and you do not know how it ends — you are not disqualified from faith. You do not need a resolution to have a testimony. Fiona Johnston stood in the gap between diagnosis and outcome and said: I trust God here. In this. Now. Not when it is over. Now.
If your faith feels small today, that is okay. Faith is not measured by its volume. It is measured by the God it is directed at. And the God who holds Fiona Johnston is the same God who holds you.
Even in the middle.
