There Are Good Things Here

Katie Hubbard journals came to an end the way that her life did, with an expression of trust in Jesus in the midst of the trials with cancer. She still brought her prayers and concerns to the Lord to the very last. She mentioned her own sickness, but she concentrated on how the kids were doing at a new school. She also kept praying for the sale of our house. Katie was, if this expression can be us...

Katie Hubbard was nearing the end of her cancer journey on earth, as her comments about dying well suggest. The full quote from her journal, written one month before she passed, was: "If I am to die soon, I would like to die well, which is easier said than done." It may not have been easy to do, but she did it. She kept God and her family in focus throughout it all. She kept giving her life away t...

Katie Hubbard was living through her favorite holiday, Christmas, one final time in 2015. She wondered openly—to her journal if not to the world—whether this would be her last. The angels announced good news of great joy to the shepherds when Jesus was born (see Luke 2:10). Katie wrote poignantly, almost prophetically: "Good tidings. Great joy. Will I know those two things here on this earth again...

The days leading up to Christmas in 2015 were filled with frustration because of cancer, fatigue, and preparations to move from IL to WI. As she surveyed the scripture, Katie Hubbard knew two things: unbelief would make the journey ahead harder and there were poor people around her already suffering misery during the holidays. As her cancer pain grew more pronounced, she was more attentive to othe...

In this podcast episode, Katie Hubbard gives you a window into all the small stresses that compounded her challenge of living with advanced stage cancer. Anyone rubbing shoulders with her during this time would know that she was taking most of her frustrations to the Lord, instead of airing them out for others to hear. At the same time, she was reading through Deuteronomy to keep herself anchored...

How could a woman living with a terminal cancer diagnosis possibly feel like she was under a benevolent magic spell? For Katie Hubbard, it boiled down to this: she could see example after example of how God had been generous to her. This podcast provides a wonderful window into the power of a proper perspective. When Katie kept her eyes on God—his word and his provision—the world seemed magical ev...

Katie Hubbard was nearing the end of her long journey through life with cancer. She didn't know how close, of course, but she could sense it. Curiously, her Bible reading had taken her from Genesis through the Torah, to the book of Deuteronomy, where Moses contemplates the ways of God on "this side of the Jordan River". He will not cross over. In this podcast, Katie reflects on her everyday life a...

Katie Hubbard walked the road of life with God knowing that veering off to the right or to the left would lead her into futility and fear, especially with cancer. Nothing helped her keep her gaze more fixedly on God that reading the Scriptures diligently. When she beheld God in the word, she was better able to glimpse him in the world. When she was the ways of God in Leviticus, she could see how h...

Katie Hubbard's journal entries from mid-November 2015 cover the range of emotions from gratitude to repentance to impatience for a cure for cancer. Two things stand out: First, all her emotional output is directed God-ward. It's gratefulness to God, repentance toward God, and impatience with God ... before God. Second, all her emotional wrestling is done with an open Bible on her lap as she reads...

It seems almost ironic that Katie Hubbard "happened" to be reading the book of Exodus as cancer forced her to pack her home for a move from Illinois to Wisconsin. She models a very active approach to listening for God's voice as she reads her Bible. At one point she noticed how much more difficult the situation became for the Israelites when Moses came back to deliver them. Perhaps their situation...

This episode takes you into one of Katie Hubbard's most searching journal entries where she weighs all the good happening around her against the reality that she is dying from cancer. Friends and family were surrounding us to help us prepare our home for the market in Illinois, so that we could move closer to family in Wisconsin. The amount of support we were experiencing was staggering, and Katie...

This episode marks the first entry in Katie Hubbard's last journal, chronicling her faith and hope as she lived with cancer. With characteristic wit, she relays how she advised God that "it only takes one buyer" to sell a house. God responded to her that by saying, "Don't tell me how to sell your house." Katie would have probably said it was a gentle reminder, not a harsh rebuke. She wrote the ent...

Katie Hubbard was struggling with the mind-numbing effects of narcotics to keep her cancer pain at bay, yet she knew the consoling help of God. From Scriptures like Psalm 34, she knew that God saw and heard her. She knew that believers who share in the sufferings of Christ also share in the consolations of God. She experienced both on the day she went to the mall and realized she would need a whee...

On October 14, 2015 Katie woke up tired and sad on her long road with cancer. What did she do with her feelings in that state? She canvassed the book of Job in the Bible, and wrote out verse after verse in her journal. Those who believe that religion offers only a crutch to people who are suffering might be hard-pressed to account for what she wrote. There are more questions than answers in this j...

Katie Hubbard began her journal entries in October 2015 facing her greatest anxieties with cancer. Her greatest anxieties happened not to be the normal ones: a fear of death or the probability of pain. She was most anxious about how her family would fare in her absence. From the devotional book, Jesus Calling, she heeded God's invitation to write out her anxieties and bring them into the light of...

Katie Hubbard was feeling the stress of cancer and parenting, yet she believed that every circumstance coming at her had been filtered through the hands of a loving Heavenly Father. Some people assume that is a cop out when you can't explain the bitterness of life. Others say things like this when they are desperately grasping at hope. Katie had spent a lifetime cultivating the confidence that eve...

Home from Mexico, Katie Hubbard was beginning a new alternative therapy for cancer that left her feeling pretty bad. She had gone through all the traditional regimens of chemo and radiation, and she was searching for any alternative that might extend her life for the sake of her kids. Though none of us knew it at the time, her systems were already beginning to slow down in advance of her death. Yo...

Katie Hubbard faced some powerful internal doubts about moving from Illinois to Wisconsin while her health was failing, but she decided to rely on God's facts instead of her fears. She found assurance of God's power and providence from Habakkuk 3:19 and Isaiah 48:17. She regarded these promises as facts to be relied upon, not lofty sentiments to be hoped for. Her journal entry comes to an end with...

In late August 2015, Katie Hubbard was struggling to hold on to hope in the face of mounting discouragements with cancer. Life was moving full-speed ahead with her oldest child beginning college and all the demands of preparing to move from Illinois to Wisconsin. You can hear in her journals how deeply she longed for some promise from God that she would be healed. Even so, her greatest desire was...

Katie Hubbard really wanted to trust the Lord moving forward ... with cancer treatment, with building a new home, with life! In this episode, she journals her way through several of the pressures she was feeling, not the least of which was how we would pay for our new home in Wisconsin. In the midst of her processing, she writes out or alludes to several Scriptures that were beckoning her not to w...

As Katie Hubbard thought about the demands of moving from Illinois to Wisconsin, she also thought about the prospect of true rest when the Lord called her home. She wasn't exactly facing the hope of heaven with serenity. Rather, she was fighting through constant anxiety and fear to lay hold of the promises of God. She was also making hard (and sometimes wonderful) decisions about building a home i...

In this week's podcast, Katie Hubbard can be found building a fire with her seven year old son, Joe, and pondering what it means to live without fear for your kids in the face of cancer. We were visiting Wisconsin from Illinois, as we made preparations to move to a new place, so Katie could be closer to family for whatever time she had left. This episode finds her revisiting a familiar passage of...

Almost no entry Katie Hubbard wrote during her final year of life captures her heart and highest values like the words from July 25, 2015. Only four words say so much. Katie characteristically addresses herself directly to the Lord, in gratitude that she was home from Mexico and together with the kids again. I imagine that she will say something like this to us all when we meet again. This week's...

Katie Hubbard was undergoing alternative therapy and thinking about eternal life. She was not ready to die -- "far from it" -- but she was more than willing to face death and the life that is to come. Sitting in a hospital bed in Mexico, she asks powerfully and poignantly what it says about us that we are so reluctant to die.

Katie Hubbard was pursuing alternative cancer treatment but looking to the Lord for help. This was a hallmark of her journey through life with cancer. So much was uncertain ... even the ways of God. However, God's nearness, goodness, and power were Katie's constant source of help. You and I can trust God's character even when we cannot trace his ways.