(during one of my trips KM boosted my confidence to dye my (graying) roots)
So many people came alongside us during all of this. Many people offered to go with me, one friend (a mother of 5) offered to travel to our house so David could go with me! The prayers poured out on my behalf encouraged my soul so much. During these days everyone kept asking how we were doing emotionally with everything. (There were so many other things going on in this country, so much busyness in the work here, deadlines, etc.)
The theme was peace. Seriously. I'm not trying to sound super-spiritual, there was an ever-present lack of anxiety in our hearts. This was all HIS grace and so many people's prayers answered.
Here are some excerpts from what I journaled during that time.
Here I am, third biopsy, 2 minor surgical ones, breasts changing, body changing, cells are changing. This we know for sure. I have been so prayed up by everyone, peace has abounded to me in so many tangible ways. Deep breath in, and anxiety has not even been on my plate. But other emotions are playing their part and I would be a fool to ignore them simply because I fear being a little over dramatic.
I have had very real and deep senses and impressions the Spirit has given me through the word and my prayer time in regards to marriage and family and parenting and this short life. Its all I've ever written about…simple variations on a theme. Calm, enjoy, beauty truth goodness, with Christ at the center of it all. How can the psalmist say (131)... I have quieted and calmed myself, like a weaned child with its mother, I am content... apart from the work of Christ?
This last trip back, there I sat, my face awash with tears in the dark on the airplane pondering, praying through what might be next. Told I will most likely get cancer in the next 2-20 years. Take a medicine though and you may never…but you will have aches and pains and lose your vibe, lose your womanhood, lose the spring in your step. Which is way better than the alternative, right? Or watch and wait. Wait for it. Watch (meaning cut open every suspicious thing), and wait (until they change to malignant). The pre-malignancy diagnosis is so interesting because it is such good news, and still so unsettling.
I just kept thinking...'don't waste your life' what a cliché these days. I kept thinking... Take the time now to travel, to experience your kids your husband, your world. Stop the speed train of homeschool and local school, and extracurriculars on repeat. SLOW it. Taste and see His goodness in this diagnosis.
I have begged God to change me by killing my sin. He told me he did...in His son, who became my sin. And this may be the follow up answer, this diagnosis. There is no back up plan. Death is the plan. And how he weaves it into each one's story is His gig. Lean on me he says. Don't just lean…lay down. Don't take it up again.
Studying Galatians with Keller. I run, he preaches. Freedom. Foolish Lorraine who has bewitched you? Why do you add to the gospel…it is no gospel….only Jesus. Only Jesus. Not Jesus+. I've been caught with beaming smiles on my 5k as this invigorates my heart anew. The same power that saves us is the power that changes us. It is not get saved by His power and then be sanctified in your own. Oh I how think I can keep myself clean. A lie. This is His wisdom: the Freedom that I can't do it, and yet I have the power to do it. "In Christ alone, when fears are stilled, when strivings cease, my comforter, my all in all, Here in the love of Christ I stand. Here in His death I live."
Now I am processing through all the anecdotes, the data, the statistics, the choices, information and more. Yet Anxiety is not the emotion I am feeling. I'm not antsy. And though I have made no decision yet I wouldn't even say I'm unsure. I'm just a bit scared. Of the changes no matter what-- physical ones, mental ones…and the biggest one that I have begged for…the change into Christlikeness through it all. It scares me, what it may take to make me beautiful like him and yet I am all in. It is all I want. A mirror dimly now…some day face to face to fully see.
