Betty's Biography

Betty Jordan's Biography

Betty's Picture I am from Southeastern Kentucky. I am married and mother of one son. I am a member of Southeastern Baptist Church in Gray, Kentucky. I have worked in the youth department and taught Sunday School over the years. I have also sung in church as a soloist and as a part of duets and trios.

I have had a great love for Gospel and Southern Gospel Music as far back as I can remember. I came from a family who were musically inclined. As a child, I remember sitting at my mama's knee singing the old hymns.

I lost my mom and a number of family members to different types of cancer. In 1989, I too was diagnosed with breast cancer in the advanced stages. I was given six months of very strong chemotherapy. It is very disturbing news to learn that I had this disease. The waiting was hard to cope with because of not knowing what I was dealing with for sure.

There is a time of tears when one is told what they are facing. There is nothing wrong with tears. Matter of fact, they are an outlet of coping with cancer. I cried and wouldn't know why. The body's way of accepting the reality of what one is facing. It took me four days to come to terms with it. I went to the Lord and told Him this cancer was bigger than me, but not Him. I laid it before Him and left it there. I can say that I have had peace of mind ever since.

Earlier, I said that the cancer was in the advanced stages. They took 22 lymph nodes from under my arm and 9 of those were positive. That is a report that no one wants to hear. I knew I had to come out fighting, and that is what I did. I said, "Lord, if I go down, I will go down fighting."

I also drew strength from Philippians 4:13: "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." I had to pull that up a lot of times and still do for one reason or another.

I learned not to complain about things that don't matter. It used to complain about a bad hair day until I didn't have any complain about. I wore a wig for one year.

If I could give any advice to anyone with family members who have cancer, first pray for them, let them talk about it, and listen to them. It's a way of dealing with it to let your feelings be known. Don't worry if you don't know what to say, because most of the patients will do the talking. As I said earlier, tears are cleansing for body, soul, and spirit.

I had lost precious people to this disease. First my mom, then my brother and when I went off chemo, my sister went on for the same thing. She, too, coped with it in the same manner as I had. She said she hadn't ask the doctor but very little because she had heard so much from me on the subject. "Learn all you can, learn what is normal and what is not", I had felt for years that I had been on a mission to aid those who had been stricken with cancer. I have headed up many benefits to aid them with financial help. In one of the benefits I had made the statement "we don't know who might be next. It could be me" and it was.

When I came through the treatments, I began writing gospel songs. I had seen life through different eyes. It was something that had always been there but I had never stopped long enough to let it happen. I have written and co-written somewhere around 300 songs. My dream is to see my work used for the honor and glory of God. I feel that he is not finished with me yet. As long as I have breath, I will give him the glory for my life and what is accomplished through me. I was supposed to have a life span of 5 years and I am going on my ninth year and still cancer free. Thank God. When you go to the edge and look over you see life through different eyes.

Because of the community work and my song writing, I was made a Kentucky Colonel in 1995. To conclude with a poem and in no way do I make light of this disease, but there's laughter as well as tears. And "laughter doeth good like medicine" and that is from the great author.

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