Laura Dahl

Shine Laura Dahl

At 39, diagnosed with Stage 4 breast cancer that had metastasized to her brain, Laura Dahl faced the biggest battle of her life. Wife and mother of four, Laura chronicles her ongoing battle with treatment and her dramatic spiritual awakening which irrevocably changed how she viewed her life, her disease, and her relationship with God. ?I was in the kitchen when the phone rang on February 5, 2009. My husband, Steve, was out of town, my three older children were in school and my 19-month old son was taking a nap upstairs," Laura recalls. "When I heard my doctor?s voice, I knew the results of the biopsy were not good. Cancer. Such an ugly sounding word, don?t you think? Just saying it brings to mind all sorts of other scary words: pain, suffering, hospital, chemotherapy, radiation, death. But those are just words people use to describe an awful disease that happens to other people. When it?s you, what happens on the inside is very hard to describe, there are no words ? only this feeling of melting. This is clearly not to be confused with the gooey, warm feeling one gets when falling in love? 'my heart melted when he gave me a ring.' Oh no, this melting is when, upon hearing the news, your body feels like there is no longer anything supporting it; like everything is collapsing in on itself. Thank God for small miracles - my son continued to sleep during my emotional melt down and didn?t have to see his mother, a puddle of goo, sobbing on the kitchen floor."