Cynt Marshall - Youve Been Chosen: Thriving Through the Unexpected

It was the day before New Years Eve. I had been puttering around our house all day, making sure everything was ready for my son Anthonys college friends, who would arrive later that afternoon for a traditional New Years weekend of football games and black-eyed peas. I wanted to make sure these kids felt welcome, and was happy to see my Christmas decorations were still sparkling, filling every nook and cranny of our home with holiday cheer.

My four kids like to tease me, and my husband, Kenny, likes to complain, about my abundantsome might say overabundantChristmas decorations. They think my holiday spirit is a little out of control, with stockings and trees and decorative pillows everywhere they look. And okay, I admit that forty-five bins of Christmas stuff can really fill up a house. Were not quite Christmas with the Kranks, but its a lot. What can I say, I love Christmas, and I try to share that love.

The holiday music played through the house as I moved around, competing for my attention along with the football game on TV and the member of my AT&T lobbying team on my work phone. As president of AT&T North Carolina, Id already helped to set our major strategies to keep the company growing, but in these quiet days before the 2011 legislative session kicked in, I needed to review a few details.

On the surface, it looked like a normal day in the Christmas season for the Marshalls. But below the surface, there was an uneasy vibe in the air. Something troubled my spirit as I went from room to room to room, making sure towels were out, the beds were made, and the politicians were on board with my plans. As I listened to my colleague on the other end of my cellphone, part of me was on high alert for the sound of our house phone ringing. I was impatient to talk to a man Id met only two weeks before but who had suddenly become one of the most important people in my life.

Finally, he called. There was some chitchat, and then Dr. Tyner said the words that still echo in my head today.

Im looking at your pathology report now, Cynthia, and I have news. Its bad and its significant.

There were a lot of other words that followed, about a malignant tumor and lymph nodes and the urgency of scheduling more appointments. From some distant place, I heard him tell me that without chemotherapy I had, at best, a 25 percent chance of being here five years from now.

I was having trouble taking it all in. Id been waiting all dayall week, reallyfor this call, but now I felt as if I were eavesdropping while Dr. Tyner talked to someone else, and I understood what people mean when they talk about out-of-body experiences. Clearly all of those bad words were describing someone elses body, not mine. Someone elses life. I had this intense urge to hang up the phone and go back to my work call and pretend this conversation never happened. All week Id been pressing to talk to this man and hear his news. Now I wanted him to go away. I wanted to keep living the life Id had when I was just handling my work. It was all I could do to hold on to the phone.

When Dr. Tyner finally said goodbye, I simply stood there. Kenny was beside me, his arms around me, but I felt as if this were someone elses body, someone elses life. Definitely someone elses tumor.

There was only one thing to do. With shaking hands, I called my mother.

I remember when she answered the phone that day, I had to strain to hear her traditional Hey, honey, just above a whisper. How you doing? My mother is typically very soft-spoken.

I could barely hold it together as I told her about the pathology results and what Dr. Tyner told me. The word cancer might have been the hardest word I ever said. But my mothers voice didnt waver in her immediate response.

This is for His glory!

Her voice grew louder as she responded to my news. She shifted from my normal, soft-spoken mama to the woman who stood in front of her church on Sundays and preached the Word of the Lord as the Spirit worked in her. I could imagine her right hand, balled into a fist and bumping up and down, the way it did when she was at the pulpit.

This, I knew, was her voice of power.

You see, my mother is a saint, an angel, and a prayer warrior, all rolled into one. She loves Jesus like no one else Ive ever met, so I shouldnt have been surprised that this was where she went in the face of unwelcome news. But I hadnt known about this cancer for very long, and I wasnt ready to face something that might kill me, even if it was for Gods glory. Right then, I wanted a pity party.

I thought about hanging up the phone and calling someone who would be horrified and grief-stricken with me for a little while. But this was my mother, and I was raised to always honor my parents, and especially to listen to my mother when she got this tone. I held on to the phone and kept listening.

My mother told me she felt a message from the Lord drop into her spirit as soon as I said the word cancer. She said that because I had a high-profile job, and because so many people knew me, my cancer journey would live itself out in the public eye, and people would benefit from watching my faith in action as I faced and beat it. There was no hesitation in her voice as she prophesied my eventual recovery, despite the prognosis. Her words were coming straight from heaven.

The more she talked, the more I felt my body stop shaking. I stopped crying. My mother wasnt crying, after all, so maybe I didnt need to, either.

I should get ready for the Lord to work, she told me, and call her back when I knew more about my next steps. She would fly from her home in California to help us in North Carolina. Her voice cracked only once, at the very end of the call, when she reminded me that all sickness is not unto death, which is something Jesus says in the Gospel of John. She finished by saying again, This is for His glory!