Single Mom With Cancer Testifies About Dangers of Tanning, Love of Daughter and Jesus (VIDEO)

By Eric Corpus, Thursday, March 20, 2014

Rebecca Pendarvis loves Brooklyn – her Instagram handle, beccalovesbrooklyn, says so – but it's not the New York borough that's the subject of her adoration. It's her 10-year-old daughter who sounds like quite a special girl.

"Even if I wasn't her mom, I would want to be her friend," Pendarvis says in this video. "I'd want to know her because she's so cool."

Brooklyn keeps her mom going, because otherwise Pendarvis might not know what to live for. She has stage IV metastatic melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer, in her lungs and lymph nodes. Without her daughter, she'd rather be with Jesus because, as she says, life has been hard.

She was diagnosed with skin cancer in 2006 when it was just a mole on her back. After treatment, the disease disappeared for five years. But in 2013, doctors discovered the cancer was back and had spread.

Her prognosis is grim, but during her time here, Pendarvis is asking God to use her for His glory. Loving Brooklyn is a big part of that. She tells her story, from how she got cancer to her realization of God's overpowering love.