No, I didn’t carry a grapefruit around for 60 days like Flat
Stanley, taking pictures of it at the dinner table and buckled in the passenger
seat of the car. I did carry it, but in my stomach. At the time of my MRI, the cyst measured 10
cm, but by surgery had filled my entire abdominal cavity.
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| The Grapefruit |
I knew about the cyst halfway into the journey and had to
wait another month for surgery. After already being in pain for four weeks,
four more seemed inconceivable. I began to brainstorm. How does God want to use in me this
month?
During the experience I had held onto Romans 8:28. “And we
know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those
who are called according to his purpose.” But as the pain grew worse and it
began to have a greater impact on my daily life, the good became harder and
harder to see.
The pain grew from a small irritant in my side to an agony
that radiated from my back down to my calf. My prayers became cries and my
reaching hands became grasps of desperation for strength I knew I didn’t have,
but my Dad did.
At one point, I had the words of Jesus echo through my mind.
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46) Matthew Henry’s
commentary gives a beautiful explanation of this verse.
“That our Lord Jesus, even when he was thus forsaken of his
Father, kept hold of him as his God, notwithstanding; My
God, my God; though forsaking me, yet mine. Christ
was God’s servant in carrying on the work of redemption, to him he was to make
satisfaction, and by him to be carried through and crowned, and upon that
account he calls him his God; for he was now doing his
will… supported him, and bore him up, that even in the depth of his
sufferings God was his God, and this he resolves to keep fast hold of.”
I had come up with a list of ways I was going to make
something of the trial, and I would love to say I accomplished them, but
reflecting two weeks after surgery, I see that what I mostly did was cling. I grabbed
onto the God of the Universe that despite all the aching and sleepless nights,
loved me through every second of that excruciating pain.
And so we know and rely on the love God has for us.
God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in
them.
1 John 4:16 NIV
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble
or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?... No, in
all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
Romans 8:35, 37 NIV
When people think of God and trials it comes out in a lot of
ways. Why did God let this happen? Why did God make that happen? Where was God?
I may never know the complete impact that 60 days had on my life, but I know I
did emerge with greater thanksgiving and greater joy than I’ve felt in a long
time.
After I started healing from the surgery, small things began
to bring me joy when I had taken them for granted before.
-Driving a car
-Sleeping through the night
-Making dinner
-Fitting in my clothes
-Being able to do my job
-Attending social events
When I’m sick with a cold, the day I can take the Kleenex box
out of my bed and put the garbage can back in the bathroom is a good day. I’m
so grateful to be able to go somewhere and not stash tissues or DayQuil in my
purse, but it fades. In Battlefield of the Mind, Joyce Meyer encourages
readers to “Remember the good times” and sites Psalm 143:5.
I remember the days of old; I meditate on all Your doings; I
ponder the work of Your hands.
In the scripture David is crying out from a desperate place
and wants to remember the good times. When I read it, it hit me in a different
way. I want to remember how God healed me, how He worked through the hands of
the surgeon to restore my body. I want to remember and be thankful.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name.
Psalm 100:4 NIV
Through Him, therefore, let us constantly and
at all times offer up to God a sacrifice of praise, which is the fruit of lips
that thankfully acknowledge and confess and glorify His name.
Hebrews 13:15 AMP
Yes, I had 60 days of pain, but mine was curable. A lot of
people aren’t that lucky and instead they spend years or even a lifetime in
pain or struggling with an illness. I’m
blessed, so very blessed.
I also learned my teeter-totter of life was out of whack. During
the end of this experience I couldn’t do a whole lot. Who wants to be stuck in
a chair with four heating pads on their body watching the clock until it’s safe
to take another dose of pain medication? Not this girl. In the end I didn’t
have a choice, and it forced me to slow down. I had been sitting really hard on that busy
side of the teeter-totter, putting too much emphasis on things that weren’t
really important. Unfortunately it took an elephant of a situation to sit on
the other side to make me lose the firm footing I had in disorganized
priorities.
Being a teacher, my life is full of lessons and takeaways
and as I try to stand back from this experience and see what it all meant, I
know I can’t fully grasp it yet and maybe I never will. What I do see is a
desperation for God that drew me closer to Him, newfound appreciation in the
daily tasks of life, and the fact that taking care of me is important, not only
when I’m sick but every day.
The beauty of belonging to the beloved is that we belong to
Him always. It doesn’t matter what our lives look like right now, if we’re on
top of the world or wondering if its storms are going to engulf us. He’s there,
standing strong against the winds and rain, and if the downpour has made your
vision blurry, call out. He’ll hear and come find you.
