Lydia Cole Stewart
Lydia is our sweet, smart, silly three year old who was busy doing all the things a three year old should be doing - playing, laughing, dancing, and keeping us on our toes.
Cancer was the furthest thing from our minds.
When Lydia began complaining that her stomach hurt and started running a low-grade fever, we took her to her pediatrician. Concerned that it could possibly be appendicitis, her pediatrician sent us to the emergency room for a CT scan.
We walked into the ER expecting answers about a stomachache. We never imagined we would walk out with the word cancer forever woven into our family’s story.
The CT scan revealed a mass approximately 10 centimeters in size on Lydia’s left kidney. We soon learned that the mass was a Wilms tumor, a type of kidney cancer that most often affects young children.
On August 10, 2026, Lydia underwent surgery to remove the tumor along with her left kidney. We later learned that the tumor had ruptured, which classified Lydia’s cancer as Stage III Wilms tumor and meant that surgery would only be the beginning of her treatment.
Lydia now faces both chemotherapy and radiation as we work toward the thing we want more than anything: seeing our little girl healthy and cancer free.
Nothing prepares you to hear that your child has cancer. One moment, life feels completely ordinary, and the next, you are learning medical terms you never wanted to know, sitting in hospital rooms you never expected to enter, and watching your child face things no child should ever have to face. But through it all, we have experienced God’s goodness like never before.
Even before we knew what was coming, God was already planting a verse in Lydia’s heart that would soon carry an entirely new meaning for our family.
“When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.”
Psalm 56:3 was our church’s memory verse for the month of July. More importantly to us, it became the very first Scripture Lydia ever memorized.
On July 5, I sent our pastor a video of Lydia proudly quoting her new memory verse: “When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.”
We had no idea how much those words would come to mean. One month later, on August 6, we received the life changing news that Lydia had a tumor on her kidney and that our little girl had cancer.
Only God knew what August would hold when Lydia was learning those words in July.
And while Psalm 56:3 may not be what most people would traditionally consider a Scripture about “childlike faith,” we cannot think of a better picture of it now.
Lydia didn’t understand everything those words could mean when she memorized them. She didn’t know what a CT scan was. She didn’t know about surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, or cancer. She simply learned that when she is afraid, she can trust God.
And maybe that is exactly what childlike faith looks like.
Not having all of the answers.
Not knowing what comes next.
Being afraid, and choosing to trust Him anyway.
Those words have become just as much a reminder for us as they are for Lydia.
We don’t know everything this journey will hold, but we know the same God who knew what was coming when Lydia memorized that verse is the God walking with us through it now.
That is why you will see the words “Childlike Faith” alongside Psalm 56:3 on the shirts created in honor of Lydia.
They aren’t simply words on a T-shirt. They represent a little girl who memorized her very first Scripture without knowing how deeply she, and all of us, would soon need it.
They represent trusting God when we don’t understand.
They represent Lydia.
