At just 11-years old, Catherine Duncan was given a 20% chance to live.
A rare pediatric cancer diagnosis turned her childhood upside down. Alone in a hospital bed in the 1970s, before there were child life specialists or anti-nausea medications, she endured chemo, radiation and surgeries in silence. Her family loved her deeply but didn’t have the tools to process the emotional and spiritual weight of her pain.
So Catherine turned to the only place she could: God.
(Hear the complete conversation between Crystal Thornton and Catherine Duncan in the podcast below)
"I just started to pray. My prayer was, 'Could I please live? Could I live to be 20?' One day, this peace flooded my body, and I knew there was something beyond. I started to call it God."
In her most vulnerable moment, Catherine encountered divine peace, a presence so real, so comforting, it changed her understanding of who God is forever.
She survived. Not only did she survive, but she lived. Decades later, Catherine would again come face-to-face with death.
While on a whitewater rafting trip in Costa Rica, she was thrown from a raft and pulled deep beneath roaring rapids. Flashes of her childhood in the hospital raced through her mind. She thought she was going to die.
But once again, God showed up.
“This white light surrounded me, and I heard a voice say, 'Living or dying is fine.' That same peace came through me again. I let go, and I came out from under the water. I survived.”
That experience became a divine turning point. Within weeks, Catherine left her successful corporate career to seek God’s calling on her life.
Now a board-certified spiritual consultant and former hospice chaplain, she’s spent her life walking with others through their deepest pain, helping them find not just physical healing, but spiritual wholeness.
“We are a soul in a body for a short time and this life is so precious. You don’t have to wait for crisis to realize that. It’s available right now.”
Through her private practice, Catherine guides people out of spiritual numbness and into deeper alignment with God. She uses presence, awe, and even neuroplasticity to help people reconnect with the Creator who never left them.
"Are you in your mind or are you in your body? Where are you? When we get present, when we quiet our ego-driven minds—that’s where the peace is. That’s where God is."
Her ministry is one of sacred presence, of being with people in their grief, their fear and their healing journeys.
“I’m not here to preach. I’m here to sit with people in their mess. What gives them life? What gives them passion? That’s where God meets them.”
If she could go back and talk to that scared 11-year-old girl in the hospital?
“I would hold her and say, ‘You’re going to be okay. I love you.’ Because I never heard ‘I love you’ growing up. But I learned how to love myself and that love came from God.”
Today, Catherine begins every morning in prayer and gratitude, asking God to guide her, use her and speak through her.
“I am here because of God. I talk to Him all day long. And I just keep asking, ‘Who are you calling me to be?’”
In one sentence, Catherine sums up her entire journey:
“We are here to drop into our heart and soul, that oneness with God and live from that place to serve the world.”
Catherine’s story is a reminder that God's presence doesn’t just show up in our healing, it shows up in the hurt.
Even in moments when we feel forgotten or afraid, God is near. Whether you’re facing illness, grief, or just a restless heart, take courage: You are not alone.
And don’t forget to share this story with someone who needs to know they are seen, known, and loved—right where they are.
Learn more at https://www.catherineduncan.org/