What if today could be blue skies, smooth sailing, and warm winds
on our backs. The truth is that most days are anything but that. Every day is a fight for abundant,breathtaking exhilaration, right? I wrote because of God’s promptings–Tell of my wonderful deeds, my inexhaustible treasures, my all-knowing, all-enabling purpose–and that’s where our guts to endure lie.
When life has bankrupted us and we feel desperately raw, when we’ve been dealt an unfair hand, when our emotions have spilled onto our sleeves, that’s when God’s supreme abilities for our good should shine.
We need the ability to focus on what is actually and purposefully going on behind closed
doors. The Lord tells us that his ways are high and heavenly (Isa.55:8-11). We need God’s warming blanket of comfort and support to truly relieve our level-10 pain.
This book provides a vital understanding of God when it comes to our severest suffering. It reveals his commanding position in our every circumstance and his complete control and goodness in handling our worst tragedies.
It’s how God’s plan was my cancer. It’s how God had preplanned my son’s sickness for his good and perfectly fixed purpose, just like Lazarus in John 11:4.This plan of his–such a difficult one–had many superior and truly remarkable purposes.
As I began to get a glimpse into his preplanning of my calamity, it changed everything for me. Hope–actual, authentic hope–began rising.
My first sense of optimism flowed through my crusty, hard, nonliving, believing veins.The thought–a true, right thought–is that He planned it; therefore, it’s exceptional and has his supreme objective in it. Wow! Now that’s inspiring! Come and join me in the pages of this book where God has written my story and where true hope rises
What others are saying
“I am so grateful for Cindy Schmidler- her life, her passion, her love for God and her love for others has been a true blessing in my life and in my family’s lives. I am thrilled that Cindy decided to share her life story of cancer, brokenness, and of hope and redemption. I truly believe this is a book that will inspire any and all who read it to preserve in the midst of life’s challenges and to hold to One who ultimately holds our lives and writes our stories for our good and for His glory. The beauty the reader will find in the midst of the ashes will help to remind them that the battles we face won’t ever have the final word because God has already drawn for His children the ultimate victory. ”
Orlando Cabrera, Lead Campus Pastor- Summit Church, Fort Myers
I met Cindy Schmidler one morning when I delivered books to the Bible study she was teaching. It was one of those “God connecting the dots” moments. Since then, my wife and I have been blessed as we have watched and participated in Cindy’s passion to tell others about her love for Jesus.Her story is like Paul’s experience on the “Road to Damascus” except Cindy met Jesus on the “Road to Cancer.” It was life changing…an eternal-life-changing experience and a story you’ll want to hear.
Michael Belk
Photographer and Author
Suffering rarely knocks. It crashes life’s party, uninvited, sometimes refusing to leave. It’s like a squatter, this suffering–inhabiting one’s body and mind with the intention of laying claim. Where is God when suffering confuses all of your categories; when cancer sets up camp for a long stay? Cindy gets it. And it’s not because she’s read about suffering or spoken with experts on cancer.
Cindy’s been there. She’s known the life-sapping, bone-wearying fatigue of chemo; battled In the darkness. But don’t make the mistake of thinking that this book is simply about surviving cancer. This book is about Jesus. It’s about the difference he makes when suffering arrives unannounced. It’s about the promises of God and how they stir faith, inspire courage, and produce in us the resilience to face another day. Let Cindy’s journey guide your own. Let her point the way so that you too can discover that Jesus not only transforms us through suffering, but he is enough.
Dave Harvey,
Author, I Still Do and When Sinners Say “I Do” – President, Great Commission Collective
Saved by Cancer is a strange title unless you understand that God will use anything to bring us to a saving faith. Cindy Schmidler is a living testimony of God’s grace. Cindy and her husband John are truly inspirational. If you need real hope, the kind that doesn’t depend on circumstance. If you are in a deep valley and need to know God is still good this book is a must read. May it bless you and may God meet you between the pages as Scripture comes
alive through this heart felt story.
Dr. Garrett Higbee
Director of Pastoral Care, Great Commission Collective Founding Board Member, Biblical Counseling Coalition President, Twelve Stones Ministries
The book touches on things that frankly terrify me, but it gave me hope that the same God who was with Cindy in her suffering would also equip me to be able to handle victoriously whatever suffering I would face. Each of us has a desire to be found faithful no matter what our circumstances. Cindy tells her personal story of the faithfulness of God to her, from ashes to beauty, in her day-to-day journey through her cancer diagnosis. The book points to the sweet fact that intimacy with Jesus is our deepest need and our greatest treasure. This book grabbed my attention. Reading it, I felt hopeful and confident that I, too, could handle whatever suffering I might face. It made me want to talk about it with whoever will listen.”
Desiree Mortensen,
Women’s Ministry Leader and Speaker
Short Synopsis
It’s all coming together quite superbly everything I dreamed since I was little girl, marrying John, the love of my life, he’s so enjoyable, loves whatever I love, always seeking my interests over his. He’s so smart and sharp and athletic, so capable, how refreshing. I also have a terrific group of really loyal fun seeking friends, who are always planning our next adventure. My job in sales is fascinating I can’t wait to get up to go to work it definitely peeks my interest. We live In a trendy area of Indianapolis and are always planning our next vacation spot somewhere new. Who wouldn’t want this dynamic superb life of mine. Then suddenly KABOOM! The sky turned black as night, the curtain just closed on a outstanding play!
What? News of tumor, grapefruit in size, wrapped around my heart and lungs. Utter panic enveloping my very soul! I can feel vitality slowly squeezing out of me, pale as a white washed cloth, trying desperately to bring some sense of composer to body. Just literally minutes earlier I was at the top of everything wonderful. How can this be! What’s happening! My mind running at mock TEN. Wild, exaggerations flowing like a tsunami over my body’s transom . Life spiraling out of control! Complete blackness all around me. The world stopped still. Nothing mattering, no talk, no thought, everything blank. I tried hard to get a sense of peace but there was none, calmness was allusive, a thing not to be grasped.
What I couldn’t see or believe or understand was that God was in the center of it, right in the middle. He was in front of it, controlling it, he was right there, showing up, revealing himself. My eyes trying hard to open wide to see, HIM right there with me in this horrific tragedy.An absolute Truth: our Heavenly Father, yours and mine, by his mighty hand, has been working all of these miseries of mine for my good. Yes for my good! How could I have missed this? Goodness he had waiting for me in the middle of my misery? Then I saw it, Cancer was HIS gift to me. As you read these pages you will see God was causing, all along working, his purposes in my circumstances. HE was there directing my path to HIS healing.
I’m overwhelmed writing to you about it today. I ambitiously want to show you how God can truly be trusted with every minute detail of suffering you and I face. Did you know we have been strengthened and equipped to handle whatever comes our way. God has done this. (Isaiah 41:10)
My aim is to show through (all my cancers, and infertility, death of our son, our unsolicited adoption; and my husband’s sting from a top ten deadliest animals) that God was there orchestrating it all for the very best for my family. HE has all of us covered in the palm of his hand, even our worst situations.— Every detail, Every heartache, all of it in his competent care. Oh that we all together would give HIM total control of our life’s steering wheel? this book conveys real, practical, life-changing lessons for you and I to take on our most difficult seasons, our very personal journeys.
Lessons to keep in our mind’s memory bank for those moments when we are ingreatest need. A true inoculation of God sized vitamins when our souls are shriveling.