On New Year’s Eve of 2021, at a church worship service, Cookie Reyes had a vision where she was surrounded by crumbling mountains and the earth shook beneath her feet.

The 45-year-old homemaker from the Philippines then saw a Man holding her hands. It was Jesus. 

“His eyes were so fixed on me, and my eyes were so glued to Him,” she said. “I couldn’t help but smile back at His joyful face. 

“I felt so safe despite this apocalyptic scene.”

The mother of two thought the vision was encouragement for her: Her son Caleb was scheduled for open-heart surgery two months after, in February 2022.

But a month after the vision, Cookie was diagnosed with Stage 3 colorectal cancer, which was soon revised to Stage 4. 

“He is my champion,” said Cookie of her husband Ian, who took over her “mummy duties”. “He looked after me and had the unenviable task of changing my colostomy bag every three days.”

She went for a colonoscopy after discovering blood in her stools. She had been feeling constipated for five weeks.

The diagnosis surprised and confused Cookie, “but I didn’t feel afraid.”

“My baby’s life depended on God”

Cookie and Ian Reyes moved to Singapore from the Philippines in 2010. Ian is a managing director at a multinational IT company. 

Over a decade after she got married, Cookie went through the heartbreak of infertility, followed by the anguish of two miscarriages.

In between the loss of her babies, her mother passed away. The onslaught of pain drove her to resent God. 

“I felt abandoned by God. I felt constantly tested by Him. I felt He favoured and blessed others,” Cookie said. 

It was not helpful when some well-meaning Christians suggested that “God was teaching me a lesson or developing my character”.

“I was bitter towards God, I couldn’t sing worship songs anymore,” she said, adding that she would sit through service with her armed crossed.

At one service, a pastor asked people who needed a miracle to come up front. Cookie walked out of the church.

“I was tired of believing, only to be let down. I started to walk away from God.”

However, things changed in 2015 when Cookie got pregnant for the third time.

“At 14 weeks, the doctor told us there was something wrong with our baby’s heart, lungs, brain, kidneys, chromosomes and more. We were advised to terminate the pregnancy.”

Instead, Cookie began to contend with God for her unborn child. 

When Caleb was a few months old, he needed machines to help him breathe, and was fed through a nasal feeding tube. “We had a hard time hiring a helper as they would cry when they saw Caleb and our mini-ICU home setup,” recalled Cookie.

“I desperately needed God; my baby’s life depended on it. But I was confused with His will regarding supernatural healing and I didn’t exactly know how and what to pray.”

Cookie went online to find YouTube testimonies and teachings on healing.

“Wanting to discover the truth on my own, I opened my Bible and asked the Holy Spirit to show me. I read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, determined to watch Jesus’ every single move when it came to a sick person.

“I asked myself: ‘What did He say to them? What was the criteria to get healed? What lesson does He want the sick person to learn? What causes a person to be sick?’”

Caleb was born with special needs. As an infant he needed machines to help him breathe, and was fed through a nasal feeding tube. 

He went through multiple medical emergencies and operations. The family was told more than once to “prepare for the worst”.

“Before Caleb was born, doctors said he wouldn’t have much of a life. Now when I see Caleb enjoying activities like swimming or biking, I know it to be a miracle,” said Cookie. Caleb, now seven, no longer requires the machines to help him breathe or eat.

But Cookie clung on to God and to hope even when everything on the outside looked bleak. 

Verses like Mark 16:17-18 – “and these signs follow those who believe … they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover” – boosted Cookie’s faith for physical healing.

“That was my turning point,” she said. “Why do some people get healed and others don’t? I don’t know. All I know is Jesus modelled a life where every sick person He met was healed. 

“This is the standard He set, and I believe we must become hungry for the fullness of life that Jesus came to give us.”

Today, Caleb is seven and able to do things that doctors said were impossible, like swimming and riding a bicycle.

Confused but unafraid

In January 2021, a month before she received the cancer diagnosis, a Bible verse came to her that echoed the vision she received.

“Even if the mountains were to crumble and the hills disappear, My steadfast, faithful love will never leave you … you will never be shaken.” (Isaiah 54:10)

“When the cancer diagnosis hit, I was prepared,” said Cookie. “My heart had been nourished by God’s Word.”

God continued to feed Cookie with His word that season, bringing her to other verses such as Joshua 1:9: “Be strong and courageous … Do not be afraid, do not be troubled … for I am with you.”

Cookie spent the whole of January repeating these promises from God, meditating upon them and journaling. It prepared her for the eventuality of the diagnosis. 

Before she went for there first surgery – nine days after receiving her diagnosis – she received a revelation as was “sitting with God, and downloading what is in His heart”. 

Cookie went through two surgeries, nine months apart. In the first, her rectum was removed and she had a colostomy. In the second, the bag was removed and she had to adjust to moving her bowels in a new way. “It was an intense and difficult period,” she said.

The story of Jesus calming a fierce storm (Mark 4:35-41) came to her mind one day and the understanding that it was “God’s peace that overwhelmed the chaos – and not the other way around”.

During her first surgery, Cookie’s rectum was removed. She also had a colostomy, which created an intestinal opening in her abdomen for food waste to exit her body. 

Two months after Cookie’s first surgery, Caleb went for open-heart surgery.

Nine months later, Cookie went through another surgery to remove the colostomy bag and had to learn a new way to move her bowels.

It was was “an intense and difficult period” but she told herself: “I will choose peace.”

“Sometimes it feels like He is singing over me, when a tune plays in my head, or I come across a song I don’t know on Spotify,” said Cookie, pictured worshipping on the keyboard at home, sometimes accompanied by Lyanna.

“I don’t feel that I have to strive to be peaceful or have to be joyful. God imparts these,” she said. “I am at peace, I am rested, I am in faith. I believe Jesus deserves our confidence.”

“He is my champion,” said Cookie of her husband Ian, who took over her “mummy duties”. “He looked after me and had the unenviable task of changing my colostomy bag every three days.”

Fighting with praise

In January 2022, before she was diagnosed with cancer, Cookie won a guitar in a contest conducted by the school where she was taking music lessons.

During one church service, a pastor challenged the congregation to ask God: “What is the weapon You want to put in my hands for this season?”

When she closed her eyes, she saw a man leaning against the wall, playing a guitar “in a folksy, acoustic, laidback Sunday morning kind of vibe that reminded me of Jason Mraz”.

Her new guitar was her weapon of warfare. “I believe Jesus was showing me how I would fight this cancer journey – with worship, rest, peace and joyfulness.”

Cookie with her weapon of warfare: A guitar she won shortly before her diagnosis. She shares her journey and sings worship songs on her YouTube channel.

In a YouTube video on a private channel which she uses to update friends and family of her journey, Cookie declared: “I’m going to be courageous and do what this vision told me to do: Pick up my weapon and fight by singing over the discouraging circumstances.” 

With that she picked up her guitar and declared God’s faithfulness by singing “Wait On You“.

“Listening to God’s whispers, reading the Bible, claiming God’s divine promises for healing, playing and singing worship songs every day aren’t just helpful – they fuel me,” she said.

“What keeps me joyful is keeping my eyes and ears on the Lord, rather than focusing on my condition, how my body feels, or my medical results.

“When I feel discouraged, I know I’ve taken my eyes off Jesus. As fast as you run back to Him, hopelessness and worry disappear,” she said.

Through this tribulation, Cookie has received a powerful revelation of Jesus’ authority over death and sickness.

“Even before I was diagnosed, our friend and pastor, Clement Sim (left) prophesied that God wants me to share my heart,” said Cookie. After she was diagnosed, she set up a Facebook page to share with family and friends medical updates as well as what’s on her heart, and what she has heard from God.

“Jesus is such a Boss! He has such authority that even the wind and the water know who is Boss. The message I got is: ‘The cancer will bow in His name.’

“People find it strange that I don’t feel fear battling Stage 4 cancer,” she said. “For me that means: I do not partner with fear in my heart, in my words, in my thoughts.”

“My conviction is that cancer doesn’t deserve to have our hearts tremble at its name. Cancer must tremble at the name of Jesus.

“I believe that when the Lord calls me home, it’ll be beautiful and lovely to be with Jesus. But it is my conviction that it is not His will that I will go out in sickness or cancer.” 

Grateful for every miracle

Since September 2023, Cookie’s cancer markers have been progressively increasing. 

“Weariness creeps into my heart as this storm rages all around me,” she wrote in a Facebook post in March this year.

There are moments when Cookie feels anxious and down. Her body “is in chaos” from surgeries, radiation and chemotherapy. She is also immunocompromised.

In the midst of “disappointment and frustration … pain, fatigue and sleeplessness”, she clings to promises she gets from her “morning dates with Jesus”. 

They include Bible verses like Psalm 62:1-8 or songs like “Joy in the Morning”, which she listened to on repeat.

“People find it strange that I don’t feel fear battling Stage 4 cancer,” she said. “I do not partner with fear in my heart, in my words, in my thoughts.” Cookie endures chemotherapy as part of cancer treatment.

Just as she has seen miracles in her son’s life, Cookie has also experienced wonders in her cancer journey.

In March, she had a pain in her foot so bad that taking one step took her six seconds. When she put her weight wrongly on it she would scream in pain. She had to use a wheelchair.

Her doctor wanted to admit her to A&E, but she refused as she wanted to give her testimony at church that Sunday.

Her church prayed for her and believed she would be well enough to do so.

“The next day, I was well enough to walk around the mall and do my errands as though nothing had happened,” she shared in her testimony at Soakability Church on Sunday. (Listen to it here around the 1.32.32 mark.)

“She’s seen our journey for years,” said Cookie (left) with one of her good friends and prayer partners, Mai Genato, even before Caleb was born.

Cookie celebrates the good things she has. “I enjoy my time with my family, and serve my church,” she said. She was also able to travel while wearing a colostomy bag “when logically it should have been a disaster”.

“Even though I haven’t seen complete healing, I am intentional about being grateful for miracles along the way and about keeping a grateful heart.”

This story was adapted from an article in Stories Of Hope.

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