Steffany Gretzinger has spent her life leading other people into the presence of God. As a worship leader at Bethel Church in Redding, California, her voice has carried thousands of people into encounters with God. She has written songs that people sing in their darkest moments. She has stood on stages and declared truths about God's goodness and faithfulness.
Then her father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. And everything she had ever sung became a question she had to answer for herself.
The Diagnosis
When Steffany learned her father was dying, her first instinct was the same instinct she had followed her entire life: rescue. Fix it. Take control. Find the right doctor. Find the right prayer. Find the right answer. She threw herself into trying to save her father with the same energy she brought to everything else.
She was a rescuer. She always had been. And now the person who needed rescuing was the man who had raised her.
The Correction
A close friend saw what was happening and said something that stopped Steffany in her tracks:
"Friend, you are not the hero in this story. There is only one hero, and his name is Jesus."
That single sentence broke something open. Steffany had been trying to carry a weight that was never hers to carry. She had been trying to control an outcome that was never in her hands. The fear of losing her father had turned into a frantic, desperate need to do something — anything — to keep him alive.
But she was not the hero. She never had been.
The Lifting
Steffany began to pray differently. Not with more volume or more intensity or more faith. With more honesty. She asked the Lord to lift her above the fear — the fear of death, the fear of loss, the fear of everything that taunts us when we are watching someone we love slip away.
And God answered. Not by removing the cancer. Not by changing the diagnosis. But by changing where Steffany was looking.
She described it this way: "He started to remove all of that and lift my awareness to another realm — to the place where He lives instead of the temporal place where everything dies."
That is not escapism. That is a woman discovering that there is a perspective above the fear that does not deny reality but sees beyond it. A place where death is not the final word. Where love is stronger than loss. Where the God who holds your father also holds you.
The Music
Steffany channelled what she was experiencing into her music. Her album Blackout was born in this season — songs written from the intersection of faith and grief, hope and fear, worship and weeping. The opening track, "Save Me," is a song of surrender from a woman who had finally stopped trying to save everyone else.
What This Means for You
If someone you love has cancer, this story is for you. Not just for the patient. For the person sitting in the waiting room. The one making the phone calls. The one googling survival rates at two in the morning. The one who is trying so hard to hold everything together that they have forgotten to let God hold them.
You are not the hero. You were never supposed to be. There is only one hero, and His name is Jesus. And if you ask Him to lift you above the fear — the fear of death, the fear of loss, the fear of a world without the person you love — He will.
Not by removing the pain. But by showing you where He lives. And in that place, fear cannot follow.
