Latter-day Saint Life

"We Are Not in Pain for Pain's Sake; There Is Something More": How One Mormon Used Her Suffering to Help Others

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What beautiful insights: “There are moments when you feel all alone, and then you remember the moments when everyone was around you, showing their love for you,” Anderson said. “We are not in pain for pain’s sake; there is something more for us to learn, and we can learn incredible things.”

I first met Becky a little over three years ago when she was planning an event for a beloved family friend who was battling cancer. I was also writing an article about it for the local newspaper. Before I met her, I heard about her—her infectious smile, her happy attitude and her story, her own cancer story.

A few years prior, she got the phone call—the unthinkable phone call we all dread after a routine mammogram—irregularities found. After additional testing, she received the news—that she had breast cancer. She sat on her couch, numb from the news, while her two toddler boys played around her. From there, Anderson began a journey that not only changed her life but the lives of countless others.

It was long after her diagnosis that friends and family started to organize a benefit for her—but they kept it a secret for a quite a long while, mostly because they knew she wouldn’t want to accept the service. When they finally showed her the website they had created for the event, her first thought was to say no to the whole thing.

“I am prideful,” Anderson said with a smile. “But I thought at that moment, ‘Don’t let your pride ruin this moment.’”

So, she went with her second thought, if she let them do this for her, they had to help her do it for someone else. They quickly agreed—mostly because Andersons share everything, she said.

Lead image from Evalogue.Life
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