Choosing Joy

Waiting makes me philosophical. 

Surgery two weeks ago went well. My total abdominal hysterectomy (or TAH) removed a melon-sized fibroid as well as uterus, cervix, tubes, and ovaries. The surgeon announced that he didn't think it looked like cancer. But a cancer diagnosis is pathology-based. Tomorrow we'll get those results.

Moments of intense peace and joy (almost euphoria) have overwhelmed me these past two weeks, brought on perhaps by medication or Divine intervention or both. Deep, cleansing breaths come more naturally, undoubtedly improved by the space my lungs have to expand now that that nasty fibroid (and other things) are gone. I accept these gifts.

But in the back of my mind, never far away, lurks the question, "Is it cancer?" 

I'm reading the devotional Rose From Brier, notes that Amy Carmichael wrote "from the ill to the ill" in 1933.¹ Amy, a missionary in India, was bedridden for months following a serious accident. Her thoughts and poems are brief but deep, easy to read when I feel like reading, and comforting to mull over while I rest.

She says in her introduction: "All these letters have been written . . . at the time the storm fell upon me, not after the coming of the calm."² This is what I hope my blog will be--comfort not just with good reports, but in the waiting, too.

A precious scripture to me in the uncertainty leading up to my surgery was "He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty."³ In the continued uncertainty since my surgery, I have clung to these additional words: "Because you have been my help, therefore in the shadow of Your wings I will rejoice."⁴

I've imagined a hundred times tomorrow's scene in the surgeon's office. What will he say? If he says "no cancer present" I may weep for joy. If he says "bad news" I may weep with fear. I cannot prepare to rejoice or crumple because I won't know until that moment.

But the truth is, I am under His wings. I keep seeing myself as a little chick, peeking my head out every so often to see if a storm is coming. But no matter what happens, I'm in the safest place. Nothing can touch me here. I can already rejoice.

 

 

¹Amy Carmichael, Rose from Brier, 2015 ed. (Fort Washington, PA: CLC Publications, 2015), 13.

²Carmichael, Rose from Brier, 14.

³Bible, Psalm 91:1 (NKJV)

⁴Bible, Psalm 63:7 (NKJV)