By Mindy Martin, Karleigh's mother.
Two months ago tomorrow, Karleigh left us to enter God's rest in His presence. A little over six years ago, she began a cancer journey that took her through her darkest days. Ultimately, it led her to the foot of the Cross.
Six years ago, Karleigh was preparing to serve a mission for the Mormon church. The day before what was to be her farewell, we learned that her recent illness was most likely cancer. This news put the brakes on her plans instantaneously. Later that same week, we received confirmation of that fear: Stage 3 Ovarian cancer had already metastasized into her bowels, bladder, and diaphragm. She was 19 years old.
On April 25, 2017, Karleigh endured a 5-hour surgery to remove all the cancer they could see. That surgery left her with no uterus or ovaries, seven fewer inches of colon, a 4-inch dissection of her diaphragm, and damage to her bladder.
After that surgery, she began her first round of chemotherapy, spanning over 13 weeks. By the end of the first dose of chemo, her hair had already started to fall out. The residual effects of the chemotherapy would completely desecrate her kidneys, requiring regular stent removal/installation surgeries so that her kidneys wouldn't completely shut down.
After the first round of chemo, the cancer markers in her blood continued to spike. So began six years of different oral and chemo treatments. These medications left her with mouth sores, a hole in her nasal septum, nausea, vomiting, nerve damage, and loss of appetite, resulting in a weight loss of 100+ pounds in less than six months.
To add insult to injury was the loss of dreams, hopes, and plans. We couldn't understand why God would allow such a thing when we were doing all the right things. After all, she was going on a mission, and hadn't we just survived my mom's death by suicide? What else, God?…
We were left angry, frustrated, confused… and wondered why all the priesthood blessings and covenant-keeping hadn't worked.
We watched our girl suffer physically and from mental illness because she felt forsaken by the God she thought she knew. Darkness, depression, and anxiety plagued her days as much as the physical pain.
And the months turned into years…
Looking back, I can see things were happening during our time in the undertow. We sing these words to a song in church, "Even when I don't see it, You're working"…
We watched God working in miraculous ways. It wasn't that He was healing her body. No, we were watching her body waste away. We could see it in her face, and we watched it gradually in her body.
Something was happening in her heart, and it was life-changing. Despite the pain, we watched her submit to God's will for her. We watched her live each day, for that day, and be glad in it. We watched her grow in grace even though her body was dying. We watched her give her life to Christ and live for Him, even from her sick bed and, quite literally, her death bed.
She could do nothing to earn or add to what God had done for her. She was saved by grace through faith, not of her works. (Ephesians 2:8-9)
In a conversation a few months before her death, Karleigh affirmed that God had saved her through cancer. It was not that God had given her cancer. It was that "God works all things together for the good of those who love Him and are called to His purpose." (Romans 8:28)
The last-ditch attempt to beat the cancer was this past January, when she endured a high dose of radiation over five days and a new round of intravenous chemotherapy. By the end of the week, she was so weak and sick and in pain that she couldn't lie down or sit up. We took her to the ER for hydration and pain management, and during that visit, she decided to come home and spend time with family until her passing…
Karleigh didn't die with the resignation that this was her lot in life. She died with a resolve that all would be well because of her Savior, Jesus Christ. She knew that one day, she would receive a glorified body like Jesus, and she rested on the promise of God, wiping away all her tears.
Karleighs journey through cancer was one from death to life … not life to death, as some suppose. "But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)," Ephesians 2:4-5 NKJV
As I shared at her funeral, cancer didn't thwart God's good plans for her life. She was known before God formed her in my womb. All her days, He counted, knowing her coming and going.
God is greater than we can imagine, yet, in His grace, He revealed Himself to us through His Son, Jesus Christ, who defeated sin and death.
"A person's heart plans his way, but the Lord determines his steps."
Proverbs 16:9 CSB
Karleigh's life was but a vapor, as are all our lives. But she showed us how God never wastes our pain. Her reality is beyond anything this sin-sick world can offer us.
Friends, submit to God; surrender your weapons and know He is God. He can make more of our lives in brokenness than we could ever make of them on our best days.
Karleigh knew and believed… "For I know that my Redeemer lives, And He shall stand at last on the earth; And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, That in my flesh I shall see God," Job 19:25-26 NKJV
