I have done around 70 interviews at this point. But I've never done one like this. This is a hard story to hear. A beautiful story. A redemptive story. A story that made me cry, and that will probably make you cry, cry for joy, and cry for pain.
In 2019, Mike Steppenbacker was suddenly and unexpectedly diagnosed with brain cancer at the age of 41. Over time, they diagnosed it as the worst kind, in the worst place; his brain stem.
The news was obviously devastating to Mike, and it was devastating to his wife, the love of his life, Linda, who had come to depend on Mike's steadfast strength.
He was the strong one. Her strength.
This event launched their family into the fire. Intense heat. Intense pressure. Intense despair. What Linda calls "the pressure cooker."
This began a two year process of evolving diagnoses, surgeries, setbacks, close calls, and doctors preparing them for the worst, late nights, wretched tears, and cries for help.
It was also two years of prayer, raw encounters with a real God, little miracles, big miracles, and a testimony that neither Mike nor Linda would trade for anything.
Mike and Linda found something there, in the loss and the darkness and the pain. In the valley of the shadow of death, they found a treasure.
And they dragged that treasure, by the power of faith and a faithful God. They dragged that thousand-ton treasure out of the valley of death and into the land of the living. They received a treasure, they were forged into treasures. They found the transformative love of God at the brink of death and despair.
They found rest and worship. Intimacy with God, and impossible joy, in the very midst of unthinkable tragedy. In the fire.
Come and see.
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