Jenny Sanders had spent more than thirty years in ministry. International speaker. Prophetic teacher. Writer. The kind of woman who discipled other people across streams and denominations, who helped them find God in their mess, who spoke with authority about grace and healing and the goodness of a Father who never leaves.
Then, in December 2019, she made a mammogram appointment.
The Diagnosis
She thought it would be routine. A box-ticking exercise. She self-examined regularly and had no reason to expect anything unusual. But the results that came back from that December mammogram were not routine. They were the beginning of a cancer journey that would test everything Jenny had spent three decades teaching.
Breast cancer. The word hit differently when it was your own body, your own scan, your own future suddenly uncertain. Jenny had stood beside countless women and said, "God is with you." Now she needed those words to be true for herself.
The Fear
Here is what nobody tells you about being a faith leader who gets cancer: the fear does not care how many sermons you have preached. It does not care how many prophecies you have spoken. It does not care how many people you have led into the presence of God.
The fear arrives at three in the morning, and it does not check your credentials at the door.
Jenny felt it. The vulnerability of a body that had betrayed her. The terror of what the next scan might reveal. The loneliness of lying in the dark knowing that all the words she had spoken to others were now being tested in her own life.
The Encounter
But somewhere in that darkness — somewhere between the diagnosis and the treatment, between the terror and the quiet — Jenny encountered something she had taught about for thirty years but had never experienced quite like this.
Grace.
Not grace as a theology. Not grace as a word she used in conferences. Grace as a presence. Grace as the actual, tangible reality of God sitting with her in the waiting room, in the treatment chair, in the silence of a house where fear had taken up residence.
Jenny discovered that the God she had spoken about was not diminished by her diagnosis. He was closer because of it. The same grace she had taught others to rely on was holding her now — not as a concept, but as a person.
The Healing
Jenny walked through her cancer treatment with a combination she would later describe as resilience, research, and hope — all held together by grace. The medical journey was real. The faith journey was equally real. And on World Cancer Day, she shared her story publicly through Woman Alive magazine — not as a triumphant declaration from the other side, but as an honest account of what happens when the teacher becomes the student.
What Jenny found was this: God does not give you grace in advance. He gives it in the moment. Each scan, each appointment, each wave of fear was met with exactly enough grace for that moment. Not a surplus. Not a buffer. Just enough. And that was sufficient.
What This Means for You
If you are someone who has spent your life helping others trust God and now you are the one who needs to trust Him — Jenny Sanders wants you to know that your faith is not disqualified by your fear.
You do not need to be strong. You do not need to have a testimony ready before the journey is over. You just need to show up — scared, honest, and open — and let grace meet you where you are.
The God you have spoken about is not a concept. He is a person. And He is in the waiting room with you right now.