Today I’m having a double mastectomy.
I don’t think I’m afraid.
I feel rather like my body is about to experience another deep blow, another intensely personal insult, like the weight of this world is once again bearing down upon me, pummeling me with all of it’s evil. The years of my life that inflicted the most wounds tumble through my mind in pictures with no sequence, without order, scattered, painful images of life’s bruises.
My body bears the memories in physical form. The effects of years of high dose steroids wreaked havoc with my body and it doesn’t forget. The disease itself has left its mark in the loss of so much muscle mass and biopsies and weakness. My right leg carries the scars of the femoral shortening I had so long ago to make my legs even. Then there are scars I can’t share, scars too personal to write on this blog.
I can still feel the pain of all of it. I can feel my muscles ache and swell from the disease. I remember every time I’ve fallen throughout the years because my core muscles and hips and thighs are so weak. I feel the smashing onto the ground and feel the pain of every hit. I feel the childhood embarrassment of not being the same as everyone else. My right femur still aches when it rains or the weather changes, a deep bone pain that I can’t reach and somehow still feels as though my leg is crying out for the pieces the doctors took out, for it’s lost parts. My legs are thick and heavy from the disease. I try hard to walk straight and strong so no one sees the weakness and pain within me.
I’ve struggled with body image for most of my life.
I struggle now as I go under the knife one more time to come out of surgery yet again with scars to add to the scars I still see and feel every single day.
I don’t want this.
Yet I know this.
Jesus bore the scars of this world too. He bore them willingly for us. He’s carried me through every pain and insult. He knows my pain, and He knows yours.
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4 Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6 We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah 53:3-6
Jesus took upon the pain of this world to bring healing and peace to our troubled souls. He came to make us one with Himself. He bore the pain to forever unite us to the Holy God and present us to Him pure and righteous, unblemished forever.
For now Christ offers us a spiritual peace and oneness with Himself. But there will come a day when our bodies will be weary no more, the scars and pain will be gone forever, and He will bring a physical healing and peace to not only ourselves, but to our world.
Jesus’ pain was not futile. It wasn’t needless or an accident. His pain bore the ultimate fruit: forgiveness and eternal life with God. He came to suffer for us.
So I guess, as I go off to surgery today, as I lay down on that stretcher for the doctor to inflict yet another wound on my weary body, that would be my prayer, that my pain would not be for nothing and that God would use even this to bring hope and healing and love to someone else through my own weakness and pain.
I’ve got to run. Surgery is waiting.
Blessings All,
Diane
Oh sweet Diane, I lift you up in prayer that Jesus heal your poor body and take this awful cancer from you. I also lift up your sweet family and the doctors and all administering to you. May God be forever in your heart.
Thank you, dear Melanie. 💞
So beautifully written. I love your spirit, friend! Holding you in prayer.
Thank you, dear friend. I love you. ❤️
Praying for you and your family. You have a large circle around you, praying and loving you. This will be a testimonial to the true goodness of God. 💕
Thank you, Kathy! 💞
Dear Diane,
I am praying for you today and your lovely family as well. I’m so sorry you are going through this. You are in my thoughts.
Thank you so much for your prayers. God bless you. 💞
(((((((((Diane)))))))))
No words, just prayers.
Right back at you, Penny!
Xo
❤️
I’m just a random reader, but wishing you all the best today and in your recovery.
You seem like a strong woman, I hope you come out on the other side of this even stronger!
Thank you so much, Rachel. Thanks stopping and for commenting so I can know you were her. Thanks for your support.
Xo
Praying unceasingly, Diane, for your heart and the hearts of your loved ones by family and family of friends. God has you. I know you know this.
Praying for, not just textbook perfect surgery, but a divine experience as God glorifies Himself in the midst of showing Himself again, and still, as faithful to His own.
In Jesus’ Precious, Holy Name, Amen.
Thank you Diane. You bless me. ❤️
Dear Diane,
As I thought about how the ocean dividing us is no barrier to the power of prayer or Gods love, a childhood song came to mind:
Wide wide as the ocean
High as the heavens above
Deep deep as the deepest sea is my saviours love.
I though so unworthy, still am a child of his care
For His Word teaches me that His Love reaches me
Everywhere.
Simple words but true!! May you know that love and in the darkest of moments know that you are His child, held in His arms.
God bless, protect, strengthen and heal you.
With love Janet (Rebecca’s Mom) xx
Dear Janet, thank you so much for your prayers. I’m blessed to know you and am so thankful for all our friends, faraway and nearby who have so faithfully prayed me through this.
I am so very blessed by all of you.
❤️
Diane