The Chapters That Make You Cry in Starbucks

"Cancer was the best thing that happened to me. Not because I wanted it. But because it forced a surrender I never would've chosen."

Corporate Exit Diaries - November 13, 2025

This week I had to admit something uncomfortable: cancer was the best thing that happened to me.

Not the chapter about getting cancer. Not recovery hell or the darkness.

Last week I wrote Chapter 14: What Cancer Actually Taught Me. 3,300 words about surrender, faith, and realizing that everything I thought I'd built on my own wasn't mine at all.

The original cancer chapter was intense—I felt like I was reliving it. But this one was different. This one made me pause and think deeper about the slow down, the full surrender, the shift from "I did this" to "He did this through me."

Here's what clicked when I put it into words: writing it made the epiphanies more tangible.

I've thought about how cancer changed me.

But thinking about it and documenting it are two different things. Writing makes it real. Pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) makes it feel "written in stone" in a way that just thinking doesn't.

The Difference Between Knowing and Naming

The chapter forced me to name the specific moments—not just "cancer taught me surrender" but the nights in the recliner asking God for help, my friend texting worship songs, praying for my daughter and hearing God say "You are my child, Rebecca Joelle. You need to believe that for yourself."

Naming those moments solidified what I'd known all along but hadn't fully processed.

Before cancer, I lived with the "I did this" delusion. Every business win, every big sale, every clever pivot—I took credit. Sure, I'd throw out a casual "blessed" or "thankful" in the caption, but deep down? I believed I was the architect of my own success.

God was background music. Pleasant. Nice to have. But not essential.

Cancer ripped that illusion away.

When you're sitting in a recliner recovering from surgery, unable to lift your arms above your shoulders, crying because you can't pick up your own child—you lose the ability to pretend you're in control of anything.

I remember one night specifically. I was in that recliner—my prison for weeks—and I whispered, "I can't do this alone."

Not as a prayer. As a fact.

And in that moment, something shifted. The voice that used to whisper "MORE Becca, MORE!" went quiet. And a different voice showed up. One that said, "You don't have to."

The Gift I Didn't Want

Here's what I wrote in Chapter 14 that made me cry:

"Cancer forced a full surrender I never would've chosen on my own. That was the gift. Not the diagnosis. Not the surgery. Not the recovery. The forced inability to do anything but trust that God had this covered."

I've had people tell me "everything happens for a reason" and I've always hated that phrase. It felt dismissive. Like a nice way to wrap up someone's pain with a bow so you don't have to sit in the discomfort with them.

But writing this chapter made me realize: cancer didn't happen for a reason. It happened, and God used it to teach me something I needed to learn.

There's a difference.

I didn't need cancer to become a better person. But I did need something big enough to stop me in my tracks and force me to reevaluate every assumption I'd built my life on.

And cancer was that thing.

What Surrender Actually Looks Like

Before cancer, I thought surrender meant giving up. Weakness. Losing control.

After cancer, I learned surrender means recognizing you were never in control to begin with.

Every business win I thought I earned? God opened those doors.

Every tough conversation I navigated well? He gave me the words.

Every client who said yes? He orchestrated that relationship.

I didn't do any of it. He did it through me.

And writing that down in Chapter 14—naming the specific moments where I saw His hand instead of my own effort—made it impossible to go back to the old way of thinking.

You can't unknow something once you've written it out loud.

The Therapy Shift

Another thing the cancer chapter forced me to confront: I used to think therapy and antidepressants were signs of weakness.

I didn't say that out loud. But I believed it.

"Just pray more. Just trust God. Just have more faith."

Cancer taught me that's bullshit.

God gave us doctors. He gave us medication. He gave us therapists who can help untangle the mess we've made in our own heads.

Asking for help isn't a lack of faith. It's recognizing that God works through people—including the ones with medical degrees and prescription pads.

Writing about my depression during recovery—the nights I told my husband "I want it to be over"—forced me to admit I was in a darker place than I wanted to acknowledge.

And naming that darkness in the manuscript made it easier to accept that getting help wasn't weakness. It was wisdom.

Why This Chapter Matters

Chapter 14 isn't just about cancer. It's about the moment everything I thought I knew got flipped upside down.

It's about realizing you built your whole identity on competence and control, only to have both ripped away and discover you're still standing—not because of anything you did, but because of what He's doing through you.

That's the shift the chapter documents. Not "here's what I learned" but "here's the moment I stopped pretending I had it all figured out."

And that moment changed everything that came after.

Because once you realize you're not the one steering the ship, it gets a lot easier to trust the direction you're headed—even when you can't see where you're going yet.

Where I Am Now: The Edit Process

Two chapters down in the expansion phase. Two more this week.

Chapter 1: Porcelain Throne - expanded from 1,148 words to 2,050 words. Added the visceral details of Dorothy and Cynthia's secret bathroom sanctuary, the SPANX shimmy during the C-suite call, and the Boomer programming that kept me stuck.

Chapter 2: When the Fire Starts - expanded from 2,428 words to 2,900 words. Deepened the beach house scene, my mom's last night, the CPR moment where I stared at the bedside table because I couldn't watch, and Josey's six-year-old response: "I bet she's singing and dancing and praising Jesus."

I cried writing Chapter 2. Not cute, controlled tears. The ugly kind. The kind where you're sitting in a Starbucks corner that isn't even your usual one, trying not to make a scene while you document your mother's death in enough detail that strangers will feel it too.

That's what editing actually looks like. It's not fixing typos. It's living in the hardest moments long enough to write them right.

The Pattern I'm Seeing

Chapters 1, 2, and 14 all have something in common: they document moments where I had to admit I wasn't in control.

Chapter 1: I talked to a C-suite with my pants down and nailed it—realizing I'm wildly capable even in the worst circumstances.

Chapter 2: My mom died on a beach vacation I planned, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

Chapter 14: Cancer forced me to surrender the "I did this" delusion and accept "He did this through me."

The through-line: competence isn't the same as control. And realizing you're not in control doesn't make you powerless. It makes you honest.

That's what this book is actually about. Not "how I built a business" or "how to express yourself in corporate."

It's about what happens when you outgrow every version of yourself you thought you were supposed to be—and discover that the person you're becoming is someone you couldn't have planned for.

What Writing Does That Thinking Can't

I could've thought about all of this for years and never landed on the clarity I found this week.

Thinking lets you be vague. "Yeah, cancer changed me. I'm more grateful now."

Writing forces specificity. "Which night? What did you pray? What exact words did you hear? What shifted?"

You can't hide behind generalities when you're writing for an audience. You have to give them the real moment. The one that actually happened. The one that proves you're not making this shit up.

And in giving them that specificity, you give yourself something too: proof that it wasn't just in your head. It was real. It happened. And it mattered.

That's why Chapter 14 felt different than all the thinking I'd done about cancer over the last year. Writing it down made it undeniable.

Cancer was the best thing that happened to me. Not because I wanted it. But because it forced a surrender I never would've chosen and taught me a truth I couldn't have learned any other way:

Everything I thought I built on my own? I didn't. He did it through me. And that changes everything about what comes next.

The Work Ahead

13 more chapters to expand. Some will be easier than others. Chapter 3 (my dad's death 26 days after my mom) is coming next week, and I'm already bracing for it.

But here's what I know now that I didn't know before: the chapters that make you uncomfortable are usually the ones that matter most.

Not because they're profound. Because they're real.

And real is what people need. Not another polished memoir with all the hard edges sanded off. But the actual story—the one with ugly crying in Starbucks and admitting you thought you were in control when you never were.

That's the book I'm writing. One uncomfortable chapter at a time.

Manuscript progress: 2 of 18 chapters expanded (11%). 16 more to go. Timeline holding at 3-5 weeks to complete edits.

This art of becoming isn't always pretty. But the chapters that make you uncomfortable are usually the ones that matter most.