Do you find your mind racing with anxious thoughts on a regular basis?

In the midst of battling breast cancer, Lynne Hartke found herself wrestling with fear and anxiety. Even after being deemed cancer-free, she still struggled with anxiety that would keep her up through the night.

“One of the hard things I dealt with in my journey through breast cancer is the fear of re-occurrence after I finished treatment. I faced my own mortality and if one bad thing happened, why couldn’t another bad thing happen.”

“I found that I could get through the day to day details because I could just move from one thing on my checklist to the next. However, I would be wide awake in the middle of the night dealing with anxiety and this pressing on my chest, not being able to sleep.”

During these sleepless nights, Lynne found solace in the Bible verses she had memorized as a child.

“I repeated those Bible verses I had learned as a child over and over again. I didn’t turn to my Bible or my phone, it was just what was already inside of me that I had memorized years ago. Sometimes it was just one line over and over again.”

Specific sections of scripture, like Psalm 139:7-12, were a word of comfort in the midst of the lonely sleepless nights.

“Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.
If I take the wings of the dawn, If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,
Even there Your hand will lead me, And Your right hand will lay hold of me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness will overwhelm me, And the light around me will be night,”
Even the darkness is not dark to You, And the night is as bright as the day. Darkness and light are alike to You.”

Especially during hard times, we have to constantly remind ourselves who we are and who God is to us. When we have Scripture hidden in our hearts the words of God keep us focused on who He is in those times of doubt. 


Lynne Hartke is a breast cancer survivor who celebrates the difficult and the beautiful with her husband, Kevin, in Chandler, Arizona where they have pastored a church for over thirty years. When not out on the desert trails avoiding rattlesnakes, Lynne is blogging, speaking and volunteering with several cancer organizations.

Key Scripture: Psalm 139:14

Featured Songs: The War is Over – Bethel; God, I Look to You – Bethel; This We Know – Passion

Under a desert sky