There Are Good Things Here

My new book, More Than Christians, comes out on January 14, 2024. The book is dedicated to Katie's parents, Charles and Betsy Hansen, and there's a section in it about my early relationship with "Mr. and Mrs. Hansen." The people we love and who love us have a lot to teach us about the gospel. If this podcast reaches you, consider buying a copy of the book, More Than Christians.

On November 10, 2024, Betsy Hansen passed from this life into the presence of the Savior she loved. Mom Hansen was one of the most influential women in my life, not least because she brought Katie into it! Here are the remarks I shared about her at her funeral.

Today, December 17, 2024, would have been Katie's and my 30th Anniversary. To commemorate this day, I reflect back on some stories from our wedding day. God's goodness and steadfast love have followed me through many years of sorrow and loss. On this day, I remember both: the grief and the goodness.

In this final episode of Season 3, we find Katie Hubbard characteristically wrestling with questions of doubt and faith, death and life, promises of provision and bills to pay. Most of all, we find her true to herself and her God, committed to the hard work of finding good things in the hardest of places. This podcast is probably the final one, so I share some final thoughts.

Katie hated almost everything about cancer treatment, except for the perspective cancer brings. She had a high tolerance for pain but a low tolerance for medication. Constant check-ups and scans left her feeling exposed and anxious. The surgeries, scars and hair loss felt like an assault on her womanhood. Yet, she could write without hesitation to the Lord, “I hate [my] anxiety and the uncertainty I live with, but I do love the perspective that comes with having cancer. Sometimes, I think everyone should have cancer.” 

Katie Hubbard closes out 2013 with a long journal entry on everything she had done since mid-November of that year. (She didn't journal a lot during that time because her journal went missing for a month.) It's amazing to consider all she did after finishing chemo, radiation, and reconstructive surgery. It would have been a full life for a person in perfect health. Going into 2014, she lists out lessons learned from the previous year: “What Have I Learned: God is trustworthy. He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. I can turn towards Him or away from Him in trials. God will provide. God will provide.”

Lest anyone think I (Norman Hubbard) edit Katie's journals heavily when I read them on air, let this podcast stand as testimony. In early December 2013, you get pure Katie Hubbard, the quintessential Auburn Tigers football fan. (Really, the "kick 6" game might be one of the greatest moments in sports!) You also see another example of the way Katie wrote out Scripture in her journal as a means of meditating on what God was saying to her. It's an inspiring model many of us could profitably adopt.

In this episode, Katie Hubbard talks about reconstructive surgery with her followers on Caring Bridge. It may be the only time you hear her publicly threaten to beat you with a baseball bat. And she reflects on a common theme in her journals: having a lot of stuff doesn't make you grateful.

In this episode, Katie reflects on the challenges and joys of parenting four kids at very different stages of life, losing a friend to cancer, and meditating on Scripture.

In the previous podcast, we found Katie Hubbard struggling with the idea that her life, taken by cancer, might be dispensable. Here, we find her breakthrough as she writes out, Romans 8:38: “For I am persuaded that … death … shall not be able to separate us from the love of God.” She goes on to write of herself, “Katie Hubbard, beloved child of God. If you are loved, you are known, not forgotten. Not wasted. Not dispensable. If I am loved, the You are not holding out on me, withholding from me.”

Katie Hubbard grapples with the distressing notion that cancer might kill her, and God might regard her life as "dispensable." In her words: "I feel shaken to the core. I feel sad. I just feel totally dispensable. How do you face your life being taken away? Not being here at all?! It might not even be necessary for me to be here, according to Your plan."

In her journey with cancer, Katie Hubbard learned a thing or two about what truly satisfies. To God, she wrote, “You are the one thing that I crave and desire that FULFILLS. Everything else leaves me feeling empty.”

Cherishing the beauty of your own backyard. Asking God for the things you want. Trusting him for the things that lie ahead. That's what you'll hear from Katie Hubbard in her journal entries from mid-August 2013. And you get classic commentary like this: “You just keep providing, and I keep being stingy and amazed.”

Join Norman Hubbard as he reflects on Katie Hubbard's life, the "voice" of this podcast, and Jesus' promises of eternal life. January 25, 2024 is the 8th anniversary of Katie's passing.

Katie Hubbard tried to find her footing in "the land of the living" after weeks of chemotherapy had kept her sidelined. Resuming something like normal life meant confronting the anxiety of normal life. She wrote down a quote from a friend about Satan's goal to turn us into "cowardly joyless souls" by filling us with fear.

Katie Hubbard had lived under the shadow of cancer and cancer treatment so long, it was hard to look ahead with hope. Even so, that's what her God and her garden asked her to do. Sitting under her new pergola (of course), she meditated on the way that spring flowers gave way to mid-summer blooms. She felt challenged to look ahead with hope in the Lord. This was important because she also decided to stop her chemo regimen early. It was taking too much away with too little promise of helping.

Katie Hubbard must have spent every morning in June of 2013 under her new pergola thinking about the troubles in her world and the beauty of her God. I don't know that you need a pergola to do so, but if you do, find a friend to build you one. For Katie, it proved to be a place of peace where she could slow down (inwardly) to meditate on the presence and goodness of God in a troubled world.

Katie Hubbard was capable of tutoring an entire generation on thanksgiving in the face of suffering. Many of us know what it's like to write a half-hearted thank-you note or "give thanks" over a meal. It's an honest effort to do what's right, and we ought to keep trying honestly. However, Katie disciplined herself to find the good in her kids and her circumstances so that she could give thanks with the kind of feeling most of us only aspire to.

In her journal entries for late May 2013, Katie wonders how to trust God for the healing that others need. She was not only walking through her own cancer journey but also praying for friends whose cancers had recurred. Her true struggle was not with medication and side effects at this point. It was an inward struggle to trust God in the face of perplexity. (She also had to figure out how to keep me from spending too much money.)

As Katie wrestled with her own sickness and fear, she knew how tempting it was to turn her eyes only on herself. The Scriptures were calling her to focus on God's holiness with humility. GK Chesterton's quote captures Katie's reflections masterfully: "How much larger your life would be if you were smaller in it."

Katie was not just struggling with cancer. She was struggling with self-pity. Everyone in the world would have given her a pass, but she would not allow herself to go down that road.

From Isaiah 40:13, 14, Katie Hubbard wrote, "From whom did God take counsel, and who instructed him and taught him the paths of justice?" Her reflection on this thought: "You seek no counsel or direction. You are the perfect source. From you flows justice, truth, knowledge, direction." Words likes these anchored Katie as she finished radiation and faced another round of chemo.

"I have to walk through this valley no matter what. No matter how I respond, I am still here. So I can slog through with bitterness and a pity party or I can choose light, love, thanksgiving. God I need the Holy Spirit to work in me love, joy! I can't walk this in my own strength. I can't choose rightly apart from you." —Katie Hubbard, April 2013

As Katie Hubbard faced the challenges of radiation and the fear of losing her life to cancer, she told the Lord what she often told me. If she only had her own interests in mind, she would choose heaven in a heartbeat. Her concerns were all for us, especially the children. So what do you do with earthly fears and eternal confidence that are both so strong and seem to be pulling you in opposite directions?

Stress and anxiety have a way of driving us forward while blinding us to reality. Katie Hubbard was experiencing massive anxiety as she faced radiation, but she was beginning to analyze the deeper cause of her stress. In her own words: "I think I have come to the crux of my anxiety: 'Thy will be done.' I want MY will in all of this: no more cancer, me here. And I can't make that happen or make you make that happen."

After Katie Hubbard's diagnosis with recurrent breast cancer, she struggled to take every stressful thought captive. The idea behind this comes from 2 Corinthians 10:5, "We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ." In its original context, the verse had to do with combatting false teaching from others. In Katie's situation—and often enough in our own—we deal with internalized false teaching. We doomcast about our future and spend our lives guided by inward fears. Perhaps you understand something about the "battle" with cancer. Katie will help you see that there's more to the battle than radiation and chemotherapy. There's an inner battle involved in taking every stressful thought captive.

For me (Norman Hubbard), it's an emotional start to a new season of the podcast. Today is the 7th anniversary of Katie's passing, and it falls very close to the time of year when she was diagnosed with recurrent breast cancer ten years ago. Opening up her journals and this chapter of our life together is still very painful for me. (I decided not to edit my tears out of the recorded audio.) More important than my tears, however, are her words as she reflects on God's Word. There is no distant shore of distress or depth of pain where a child of God will be abandoned: "If I make my bed in hell, behold, you are there ... if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there your hand will lead me and your right hand will lay hold of me" (Psa 139:8-10).

Katie closed her journal entries for 2009 by reflecting on a December that was a fitting end to a hard year! Everyone in our family got sick with strep the week before Christmas. We were so sick we could not even celebrate Katie's birthday (which happened to be our anniversary). However, everyone was back on their feet for our pilgrimage to Wisconsin to be with family for the holiday. Katie rejoiced at the splendid winter weather ... and the chance to go shopping with her mom. If you asked her at the time how she was doing, she would say, "Really well, and forever altered; deeply happy and profoundly emotional; up, and down!" Maybe her experience is not too far from your own. May her reflections strengthen you.

In September and October of 2009, things were looking up for Katie after months of feeling bad from cancer treatment. Consistent with her custom of talking with God about everything, Katie looked up because things were looking up. She offers a tremendous prayer where she reflects on God's abundance and asks him to draw her out of a mindset of poverty and want. "My resources are lacking," she writes, "but you're are infinite through eternity." Her journal is a great reminder to look up when things are looking up.

As Katie Hubbard geared up for a new school year, she found herself confronted with so many negative thoughts about the challenges of life with cancer, kids, and limited resources. As she listed her troubles in her journal, she prayed for the courage to trust God in the face of trials and uncertainty. "You have given us promises for times of storm and trial," she wrote, "not blue sky and ease."

Katie Hubbard was recovering strength after several rounds of chemotherapy for breast cancer. Though her progress wasn't without setbacks, she was looking ahead and looking back on the lessons she had learned: how trials produce character; how God has to be trusted to hold all things together; and how God is big enough to do so. She wasn't just recovering strength after cancer treatment, she was developing trust, hope and gratitude.

Katie Hubbard never quit meditating on what it meant to walk with God in faith. The pressure of a cancer diagnosis, the challenges of chemotherapy, and the worry about her future just made the question more insistent in her mind: What does it mean for a person to walk with God in faith?

As Katie Hubbard regained her strength after chemotherapy, she faced all the fears the future might hold for her. More importantly, she turned to the Lord and his word to figure out how to live forward. She was resolved to hear God and trust him, no matter what, taking her cue from the greatest story of deliverance in the Old Testament.

After months away from her personal journal during chemotherapy, Katie Hubbard reopened a dialogue with the Lord about his power and our weakness. She wrestled with her own anxiety about money and wondered whether she truly trusted the Lord. In characteristic Katie Hubbard fashion, she considers how effortlessly God sends abundant rain and concludes, “You work out of abundance, no limits, vast power, perfect holiness, complete wisdom.”

Katie Hubbard excelled at passing on perspective, even when chemotherapy was making her miserable. As she chronicles her final round of chemo, with all its lows and woes, she helps us enter into the valley. That's one of the gifts she gave as she blogged through this journey. She helped fellow-travelers with cancer and friends who will never face cancer understand what it's like to laid low … and to look up.

This is quite simply one of the best podcasts you will listen to as Katie Hubbard wrestles through the darkness of cancer into the light of God. This entry from her blog is nearly miraculous, because she was at a physical low point from chemo and fighting through dense mental fog. Even words were hard to come by during this time … until she sat down to proclaim the good things God had done for her. If ever there were a podcast that capture the radiance in her soul in the darkest hours, this is it: “Mountains had become, in my mind, immovable. So God has flattened me on my back and said, ‘Look UP!'”

In this week's podcast, Katie Hubbard reflects on the difficulties of raising a toddler while undergoing chemo. She also humorously recounts how perilous it can be to pack a diaper bag with chemo brain. With her third chemo treatment behind her, she takes some solace in the fact that she only has to do this “one more time.” Those were hard words to read so many years on.

As Katie Hubbard lived through her second round of chemo, she found grace from God through the Scriptures that encouraged her not to fear. This was particularly important for her as her hair fell out and she decided to shave it off. Katie's words during this time teach us how search out the balance between staying grateful and staying honest about your pain.

In her blog post, Katie Hubbard shares a cherished family memory that involves Rachel's baptism and a pair of very small pants. You'll want to listen in! She also reflects on her struggle with being so sidelined and energy-less as a mom. One friend's child even prayed, “Lord, help Mrs. Hubbard know how to do nothing!” 

Katie Hubbard was adjusting to life with a toddler (along with 3 older kids) while undergoing her first round of chemo for breast cancer. Things got pretty interesting right away as some of the kids got sick at home, while the fog of ‘chemo brain' settled on Katie. Throw in insomnia and loss of appetite, and it's a wonder she could write with the wit she did about her experiences. At the same time, she meditated on the grace that had carried her through these difficult days, knowing that same grace would carry the children, too.

When Katie Hubbard started chemotherapy for breast cancer, she stopped writing in her journal but started writing more frequently on her Caring Bridge blog. The world is probably a better place for it, because more people got a window into the practical and emotional challenges of going through cancer treatment for the first time. In this episode, you'll find Katie doing what she can to find the good and express it with humor as she begins chemotherapy for breast cancer.

In mid-April 2009, Katie Hubbard picked up her pen and journal after a few weeks away (recovering from surgery). The three entries from this time all focus on God's purposes in times of testing and his power in our weakness. Katie also reflects on the fact that Jesus, who never did any wrong, learned obedience through suffering. If “the captain of our faith” suffered, how should we expect to pass through life without suffering, too? 

For the first time since receiving her initial cancer diagnosis, Katie Hubbard finally received good news: there was no evidence that her cancer had spread. Though she couldn't write in her journal (because she had drainage tubes under her arm from the mastectomy), she did post a couple of updates on Caring Bridge about the relief that good new brought. Of course, learning that the worst hadn't happened gave her the mental space to process the hard things that had happened. In her own words, she almost fainted twice in one day thinking about the surgeries she had been through. Even so, the kids were back at home with all the energy they brought, and Katie was resolved to find the good (and even humorous) things in life as we were living it.

When Katie Hubbard went in for a mastectomy and initial pathology on her breast cancer, she was prepared for good news and bad news. She did not know there was a third option: even worse news. When Katie woke up from anesthesia, she discovered the doctor had to remove all her lymph nodes, putting her at long-term risk of developing lymphedema. It also meant waiting for a pathology report to stage the cancer and move on with treatment. In this bleak hour, Katie relied on Romans 8:28 about how God works for the good of those who love him, no matter the circumstances. In doing so, she staked the peace of her soul on the promises of God.

In this episode, Katie wrestles with practical and emotional demands of an upcoming mastectomy and lymph node biopsy. She knew the procedure would leave her humbled and scarred. None of us knew what it would say about the stage of her cancer. Both the known and the unknown were heavy loads to carry.

In her journal entries for mid-March 2009, Katie Hubbard describes the apprehension she felt after and MRI biopsy to determine whether her breast cancer had spread. “What will today bring?" she asks the Lord. “Good news? Bad news? No news?” This is the tension every person (and family) lives with after an initial cancer diagnosis. In Katie's case, she received bad news that she would have to have a mastectomy. This led her to a lot of soul-searching and she cried out to God for help. One of the most searching moments you will find her journal comes when she writes, “I will have wounds. You have wounds … but you had no anesthesia.” In the midst of her pain, she was discovering how Jesus had entered her pain already to be with her in the suffering.

Katie Hubbard gives a rare glimpse into her heart and mind as she prepares for a follow up MRI and biopsy after her initial cancer diagnosis. You will be inspired (and sobered) by her raw pleas for help, and you'll smile at comments like, "I survived my MRI! Thankfully, Lord, I had you and two Valium." Mostly, she wanted the procedures to be painless and the news to be good, but she recognized that her Savior, Jesus, had "suffered without anesthesia". She was learning what her own share of suffering would entail at this time.

As Katie Hubbard lived through the early days of a cancer diagnosis, she faced the fatigue and fear you'd expect. She also took the time to write short entries of prayer to the Lord. Many of us feel like we ought to say something substantial to God when we pray. That's not a bad idea if you can manage it. If you have a one-year-old who won't sleep, an unexpected cancer diagnosis, and worries about how you're going to make it financially, it may be better not to force things, though. In the early days of her cancer diagnosis, Katie Hubbard shows that you can write (pray) the simple things—like praise and thanksgiving—when life gets complex.

As Katie Hubbard tried to wrap her mind around her initial diagnosis of breast cancer, she was not traveling alone. The philosopher-pastor Dallas Willard was helping shape her thinking through his book, The Renovation of the Heart. She wondered whether it was possible for God to transform her in the midst of her trials. In her words, "What if all of these tribulations produced perseverance, character, and hope? What if I looked to the future glorying in tribulations, instead of cowering in fear that something might go wrong?" What if your trials could accomplish the same thing in you? Katie Hubbard was not simply trying to wrap her mind around an initial cancer diagnosis; rather, she was fixing her mind on the promises of God in Jesus Christ.

Welcome to the second season of There Are Good Things Here, the podcast where we follow Katie Hubbard's journal entries through her first year with a breast cancer diagnosis. The podcast opens with Katie's prayers and reflections on the normal busy-ness of life with four kids, lots of company, and the stresses of life near the end of the Great Recession. Katie's practice had always been to process her days in prayer to God, often writing out her prayers in her journal. On January 27, 2009, she received word that a biopsy on a mass from her right breast had come back positive for breast cancer. What do you do when life takes such an unexpectedly hard turn? You turn to God and the truths of his word. At least, that's what Katie Hubbard did when she was first confronted with an initial breast cancer diagnosis. Katie Hubbard's journal entry when she was first diagnosed with cancer in 2009

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 used, a "practical saint". The trials of cancer could no more shake her from her practical concerns than they could her trust in Jesus. She held firmly to both until the end. May we have the grace to do so, too.