VT. Tomorrow Is Will’s Scan Day — A Mother’s Desperate Prayer for Healing, and a Church Moment That Softened Her Heart in the Most Unexpected Way

Tomorrow is a huge day for my family — the day Will has his scan.

Just hearing the words “scan day” is enough to make a mother’s heart ache. Last time, the results weren’t just a piece of paper. It was like a knife plunged into our most fragile hope: the cancer had spread almost throughout my little one’s body. And from that moment, everything in life seemed to change. No more normal days. No more far-fetched plans. Only long nights, heavy breathing in the darkness, and a repeated prayer as the only way I could stay strong.

Now, we cling to the daily chemotherapy — and to a simple, desperate plea: Please, God… just stop this spread. No need for an immediate miracle. No need for anything grand. Just stop it. Just let that little body have some peace. All I wanted was for my child to be less in pain, less tired.

Every day, I prayed the same prayer, unchanged, as a declaration and as a clenched fist I held for myself:

“Thank God for healing Will and destroying every cancer cell in his body.”

I didn’t allow myself to say anything other than complete healing, because if I let myself say anything negative, I feared my faith would crumble. I needed to believe. I had to believe. Because I knew the God I worshiped was greater than anything that was working against my child. That faith was the only thing that allowed me to wake up each morning and keep going.

Today was longer than I expected. A tiring day dragged on. I worked late, carrying a frustration that had nothing to do with Will—the kind of petty things one might get angry about in everyday life. But when there’s a seriously ill child in the house, all that frustration instantly becomes meaningless. I left work exhausted, not even bothering to change, driving straight to church, arriving thirty minutes late in my uniform, feeling lost and out of place at the wrong time.

I sat there, my heart heavy. Tired. Empty. And afraid.

Then, at the end of the service, Will leaned over and whispered in a tiny but firm voice:

“Mom, I want to go up to the altar to pray.”

A simple sentence, but it felt like someone had touched the softest spot in my heart. I followed him and Jason up. And as I placed my hand on Will’s back—that small back that had carried so much pain over time—I began to pray. But strangely, my heart softened. Something inside me melted away. I was no longer just praying for my child, no longer just revolving around my fear, my broken heart, my pleas.

In that moment, I was praying for another mother.

For her son.

A name I never thought I’d utter in church. A name I’d thought of with unflattering words in my human vulnerability. A name associated with prejudice, judgment, and the cold walls of my heart.

But the moment that name slipped from my lips, I knew something had changed.

I still held Will’s back, but my heart suddenly shattered like a door opening. I realized my son had so many people praying for him. My son was loved, embraced, and supported by hundreds, thousands of hearts. But what about that other mother? She was a mother too. She trembled too. She feared losing her child just like me. Their pain might take a different form, but it was still pain. Still a mother watching her child helplessly.

For the first time in a long time, I understood that the most sacred aspect of prayer is not just asking—but transforming.

Tomorrow, we will face the scan. I’m still scared. I’m still trembling. But tonight, God reminded me who I am, and who I am called to be: a loving, humble mother who puts other hearts into her prayers.

Sometimes that’s difficult.

But perhaps… it is in the most difficult moments that faith becomes truest.