To be honest, most days I don’t think about it.
Most days, it never even crosses my mind that it’s been three years.
The summer before my senior year I was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and just a few days later I was being prepped for surgery.
The size of a golf ball, they said.
After months of being sick with no explanations or answers, I was just thankful for a reason behind the pain and confusion.
Finally, something that can be fixed – or at least we could try.
I’m a do-er. The frustration of sickness without answers combined with a doctor who told me I was making it all up…it was too much, and I just wanted someone, anyone, to tell me what was wrong and how it could be fixed.
I didn’t know that on June 30, 2010 I would have my answer. My human answer.
I didn’t know that July 6, 2010 would become a marker in my life. A day when I was physically healed, a tumor removed from my brain.
But even before June 30th, I had my answer.
Not a physical one, and not one that the doctors could understand.
I had peace. Not because I knew what was going on in my body, but because I knew what was going on in my heart, in my soul. I knew the very Lover of my soul was (is) Faithful.
Three years ago, I didn’t know if I had cancer or not, but I had seen God use the past year of my life to shape me into a new person.
The year leading up to my diagnosis and surgery was the year community broke me. More painful than a brain tumor, my heart was shattered and there was no one to turn to but Him – and He was there.
In the mornings when I didn’t know how to get through another day alone, He was there.
When the room was dark, the world asleep, and I lay there muffling sobs as tears ran down both sides of my face into the pillow, He was there.
On Sundays when I would walk down the halls, searching for a familiar face that would welcome me, while at the same time hoping I would catch those familiar eyes and see a smile in return, He was there.
On empty Tuesday afternoons and Saturday nights and football games and shopping adventures and missions trips, all of it faced alone, He was there.
He spent that entire year proving every single day that He will always be Faithful. When I turn to Him and when I don’t, He remains.
So when I got my human answer on June 30th, it was met with relief inside – but mainly, I just felt a deep sense of peace.
I’ve written it time and again, and you can go back and read My Health Story, but allow me to say that the peace I write of, I do not understand it.
I don’t have a logical reason for why the news of a brain tumor was met with prayer, or why months in advance I had looked at my mom and wondered out loud if I had a brain tumor. I don’t understand why July 6th worked out so well for my family or why I was able to control the uncontrollable sickness when I was on a mission trip the week before the diagnosis.
The only answer I have is Jesus.
The reason behind that is very simple: He is the only answer. Not just for my story, but for yours as well.
As I sit and pray that these words encourage and reach the hearts of His daughters, I am mindful that none of it is me.
What has come of this Story is all from Him and for Him. Lord, may it be so.
With tears running down both cheeks and hands raised high, I pause to sing these words through a lump in my throat:
Bless the Lord oh my soul
Oh my soul
Worship His holy name
Sing like never before
Oh my soul
And worship His holy name
I don’t know what will come. Every six months I get MRI’s, and there have been some pretty serious scares in the past three years.
This I do know:
No matter the outcome of each new test, no matter the heartache of relationships or the hard times to come, no matter the unknowns and the un-fine days, He is Faithful.
On a Tuesday morning or a Saturday night, He is Faithful and good and strong enough to hold all my pieces close to His heart. The great artist is more than capable to glue them back together, mended to be holey – with room for Him to pour over and out of the cracks.
I bear the scar of something that humanly seems terrible, but it is a scar that tells of His goodness, pointing the glory right back up to Him.
