‘My doctor gave me three years to live. But I know who numbers my days’

When Andy Robinson was told that he had stage four bowel cancer, what unsettled him most wasn’t the diagnosis, but the peace he felt. “I expected to feel panic and anxiety,” he says. “But I didn’t. There was just a peace that I can’t describe. In some ways, I was almost anxious that I wasn’t anxious.”

In the run-up to Christmas 2022, Andy had sensed that something wasn’t right physically. Tests led to a colonoscopy. Sitting with his wife before the oncologist entered the room, he tried to prepare her. “I said: ‘This isn’t going to be good news.’ The consultant confirmed that it was bowel cancer.” When Andy asked how long he had to live, her answer was sobering: “Two, maybe three years.”

Still, Andy says, the peace remained. 

Peace has a name 

Andy describes it as a peace that “defies understanding” (see Philippians 4:7). “I’ve come to realise that peace isn’t the absence of difficulty, struggle or trauma,” he says. “It’s the presence of someone. Jesus.”

At the time of his diagnosis, Andy had been leading Lifespring Church in West Sussex for 16 years. The church generously placed him on sick leave for 18 months with the remit to “do as much or as little as I felt I could do”. 

Alongside the shift in schedule, the diagnosis forced a shift in perspective. Andy found himself asking a stark question: “Either God has numbered my days, or cancer has numbered my days. And I landed on God has numbered my days.” His conviction became his firm foundation even as the medical facts worsened. The cancer spread to Andy’s liver and lungs. After initially finding two tumours on his liver, a further scan revealed six.

When they heard the news, his wife said: “‘Are you OK? You didn’t flinch.’ And I said: ‘Yeah, I’m fine. Because God’s number for my days was the same yesterday as it is today.’”

The dark rabbit hole

In January 2025, Andy entered what doctors said would likely be the final year of his life. When his granddaughter turned five, he thought: Is this the last birthday I’ll see? The same question surfaced at Easter. And when he put his son, Tom, on a plane to America: Is this the last time I’ll see him?

He describes it as a “dark rabbit hole” that would spiral into thoughts of his own funeral and what life would look like for his children and grandchildren. And yet, repeatedly, he found himself returning to the same truth: “In those moments, the peace of God would overwhelm me again,” he says. 

Faith for healing

For Andy, living with terminal cancer means holding two truths in tension every day: praying boldly for healing while anticipating death.

“On day one I was asked: ‘Have you got faith for your healing?’” he recalls. “And I had to be honest. No, I don’t – not in the way Hebrews describes it. I know God can heal me. But I don’t have an assurance that He will [Hebrews 11:1]. And that’s different.”

God is able to heal me. But even if He doesn’t, He’s still good

Instead, he finds himself living in the defiant faith presented in Daniel 3. “Like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego – God is able to save us, but even if He doesn’t, we’re still not going to worship your idol. God is able to heal me. But even if He doesn’t, He’s still good.”

As a former church leader, Andy is acutely aware that people are watching how he walks this road. “Whether I’m leading, whether I’m even on the team or not, I want to pastor in a way that stirs faith for supernatural healing but also prepares people for the fact that Jesus might take me home.”

Refusing to die twice

If there has been one conscious decision, it is this: “I refuse to die twice,” Andy says. “Some people get a diagnosis, and they die on the inside that day. I’m not doing that. I think about life more than death. Every day really is a gift.”

It has also changed how he spends his time. Family now sits unquestionably at the top of his priorities. “You realise you don’t have tomorrow. So, you say no sometimes. Not selfishly, just wisely.”

There have even been small rebellions too. After years of hesitation as a pastor conscious of other people’s opinions, Andy finally got the tattoos he’d always wanted. On one arm: “Christ in me, the hope of glory” [see Colossians 1:27]. On the other: “To live is Christ, to die is gain” [Philippians 1:21]. 

The latter was a verse offered too quickly by a well-meaning Christian when he first shared his diagnosis. Those words didn’t land well at the time, he says, but they have now settled into his heart as much as his skin.

Andy does not pretend to know how his story will end. He still prays for healing “with all my heart”. But he also knows something deeper: “If my days are numbered by God, then the works He’s given me to do are numbered too. So, the question becomes: Am I doing what He’s put me here to do?”

For now, that means living intentionally, gratefully and without fear. One expression of this is his ongoing stewarding of Waymaker, the charity he founded that provides education and emergency support across Africa and Eastern Europe. 

Andy has also written a book. “People won’t even use the word ‘cancer’. They just call it ‘the big C’. And so, the title of my book is: The Big C in Me, because my life verse is “Christ in you, the hope of glory”. He’s the big C in me, not cancer.”

“I don’t want to die,” Andy says. “I’m not in a rush. But I have to settle it in my heart that He may call me home – that’s His call, for His glory. And it will be blessed.”  

The Big C in Me is available to preorder from andyrobinson.org.uk