A guest post by an anonymous writer, which will be an ongoing series.
Please join us on her journey!
As I type this I am getting ready to have another unexpected surgery in two days. During my July 12 reconstruction surgery, I got a bad surgical burn at the top of my left breast. My doctor had every reason to believe it would heal. However, it did not. I had an appointment on August 13 and the doctor was shocked at how bad the burn still looked. So he recommended going back into surgery to get the burn sutured. I will then, basically, start over the reconstruction process on that side. During this surgery, the burn will be sutured. A new expander will be placed, but not filled and I will wait for the suture to heal for about a month. After it is healed, the expander can be filled, only a little at a time, to get back to a place where I will have enough room to place a new implant, the same size I have now. Luckily, the right side needs nothing to be done. It is going to be another year before I am in the best place I can be with this. The scar will take that long to heal, and have "scar revision" after I am done with all my surgeries and the scar has healed as much as it can on its own.
Honestly, this burn has been the hardest thing to deal with in this entire process. I have cried more in the last four weeks than all the time before that since my diagnosis. I started to question my decision for reconstruction. I wondered why is this happening to me? Why is this not healing? What am I doing wrong? I am not mad at the doctor. He is very apologetic and knowing all the details, I do not think it was negligence. I believe it was an honest mistake. He has been very responsive, communicative, available and is doing everything he can to make it right.
While I haven't come up with the specific "Why" in this situation, I think every situation has a purpose or something we can learn from it. I do not yet know any higher purpose, but I hope to figure it out in the future.
Despite the "not knowing", there are a few things I do know:
- Nothing can hurt me - this sounds very odd, but it is something that struck me early on. I was thinking about getting a "bulletproof" tattoo and someone asked me what that means. I explained that no matter WHAT happens, I am always OK in the end. And in the End with a capital E, I am not only OK, but will have unfathomable joy, wholeness, and deliverance from every harmful thing. Furthermore, if I keep my eyes on Jesus and his unfailing love, the things of this world will not have the emotional effect that they have when I start to think of my current experience alone. It would be easy to get sucked into depression about many things in this world. However, these things are only temporal.
- God does not cause everything that happens to me, but he does allow things. I believe everything that happens in life was either ordained by God or allowed by Him. If he allows hardship, it is for any number of reasons. It is never ordained by God for hardship to befall me. However, he may allow something (not stop it from happening) if it will help me, teach me something, protect me in the future from similar hardships (also learning), help someone else, give glory to Him or any number of reasons, many of which I will never understand. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, and your ways are not my ways." This is the LORD's declaration. Is 55:8
- God's hands are always on me, protecting me. Despite what I go through, God is always with me. This ties into how nothing can hurt me. I can always trust in Him to see me through to the other side and to give me hope in times of despair or doubt. You are my shelter and my shield; I put my hope in your word. Ps 119:114God is our refuge and strength, a helper who is always found in times of trouble. Ps 46:1
Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Cor 4:16-18
More on this here. Nothing Can Hurt Me!
This has been a hard season. The hardest I can recall. Sometimes all I could do was cry. However, I haven't lost hope. God has always known what he is doing and always will, even if I don't always know what it is. I truly believe that and I have never stopped.
This first song has been exactly how I have felt through most of the last month. The second one has given me hope and speaks to God's protection.
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