Linda Foster was a librarian. She had worked at the public library in Raleigh, North Carolina, for twenty-three years. She was the kind of person who believed in systems — the Dewey Decimal System, a well-organised calendar, a plan for everything. When she had a problem, she researched it, categorised it, and solved it.
Cancer was not a problem she could categorise.
The Diagnosis
Thyroid cancer. Found during a routine blood test that showed abnormal thyroid levels. The ultrasound confirmed a nodule. The biopsy confirmed it was malignant.
Her endocrinologist was reassuring — thyroid cancer has one of the highest survival rates of any cancer. Treatment typically involved surgery followed by radioactive iodine therapy. The prognosis was excellent.
Linda heard all of this. She understood the statistics. She knew, intellectually, that thyroid cancer was among the most treatable forms. It did not matter.
The Fear
The fear was immediate and overwhelming. Not proportional to the medical reality — she knew that. Her therapist told her. Her doctor told her. Her sister told her. Everyone told her the numbers were in her favour.
Fear does not do maths.
Linda tried everything in her emotional toolkit to manage it. She started a cancer journal. She joined a thyroid cancer support group. She began therapy with a counsellor who specialised in health anxiety. She downloaded meditation apps. She read books about mindfulness and cognitive reframing.
All of it helped a little. None of it helped enough. The fear was still there every morning when she woke up and every night when she tried to sleep. It was a low hum underneath everything — not loud enough to incapacitate her but constant enough to exhaust her.
"I was managing the fear," Linda said. "That was the best I could do. I was not free of it. I was just coping with it. And coping is exhausting."
The Encounter
It happened on a Tuesday morning, six weeks after the diagnosis. Linda was sitting in her reading chair with a cup of tea, doing what she had been doing every morning: trying to quiet her mind and pray.
She was not good at prayer. She had always been more comfortable with books than with conversations with God. Her prayers tended to be lists — please help me with this, please fix that, please keep my family safe. Organised. Efficient. Librarian prayers.
This morning, she was too tired for a list. Too tired for strategy. Too tired for one more attempt to manage the fear with willpower and technique.
She just said: "God, I cannot carry this anymore. I have tried everything. I have journalled and therapied and supported-grouped my way through six weeks and the fear is still here. I do not know how to give it to You. But I am telling You: it is Yours. Take it. I am done trying to manage it."
What happened next, Linda describes as the most real thing she has ever experienced.
"It was like something left my body. Not a feeling — a presence. The fear was a presence, and it left. And in the space where it had been, something else moved in. Not a thought. Not an emotion. A person. God. He was there. In my reading chair. In my living room in Raleigh, North Carolina, at seven in the morning on a Tuesday."
Linda sat in that chair for an hour. She did not read. She did not journal. She did not strategise. She just sat in the presence of someone who was holding her.
"I gave God the fear," she said. "And He gave me Himself. It was not a transaction. It was an exchange. Fear out. Presence in."
The Healing
Linda had her thyroidectomy three weeks later. The surgery went well. The radioactive iodine treatment followed. Her follow-up labs were clean. Her oncologist eventually told her she could use the word cured.
But Linda will tell you that the healing happened in the reading chair. Before the surgery. Before the treatment. Before the labs came back clean. The cancer was treated by medicine. The fear was removed by God.
"I wasted six weeks trying to manage something that was never mine to manage," she said. "The fear was too big for me. It was never not going to be too big for me. It needed to go to Someone bigger."
What This Means for You
If you have tried everything — the journals, the therapy, the support groups, the apps, the breathing exercises, the positive affirmations — and the fear is still there, still humming, still exhausting you — maybe the problem is not that you have not found the right technique. Maybe the problem is that you are still trying to carry something you were never meant to carry.
Cast all your anxiety on Him. Not manage it. Not reduce it. Not cope with it. Cast it. Throw it. Hand it over. Say the honest prayer: I cannot carry this anymore. Take it.
Linda Foster was a librarian who believed in systems. And the most important thing she ever learned was that fear is not a problem to be solved. It is a weight to be given away.
Give it away. And see what God gives you in return.
