In the Hands of the Potter

 

“I, the LORD, say: ‘O nation of Israel, can I not deal with you as this potter deals with the clay? In my hands, you, O nation of Israel, are just like the clay in this potter’s hand.’  Jeremiah 18:6

Are doctors prophets? Maybe, sometimes. I don’t know what their spiritual giftings are, they usually don’t list those on their profiles. Can God use them in those ways in my life? Definitely. God has sent several different doctors into my life that have affected its course and direction. Sometimes I listened to them, sometimes I didn’t. Sometimes I was supposed to and sometimes I wasn’t!

Most recently I had an encounter with a neuro radio oncologist who prophesied sunshine and roses for me. He told me that the best and only information available for my extremely rare tumor stated that I had a 95% survival rate and so I shouldn’t be in the least concerned. I could have walked out of that appointment with a false sense of hope and gone about my life in peace. The reality was that his “best and only” information was severely flawed, and the bulk of the information out there painted a very different picture. Instead of being an appointment that inspired peace, it was an appointment that inspired research.

My new neuro radio oncologist is less insistent that the future is certain, but she inspires a lot more trust. Her methods don’t feel solid or measurable to me. I don’t walk out with a piece of paper with numbers and a plan. I wish I did, but I don’t. Whether she realizes it or not, my new doctor is encouraging me to walk by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7). This is challenging for me, but that’s not a bad thing.

When God took Jeremiah to visit the potter, Jeremiah witnessed the potter having issues with the pot he was making on the wheel. When he did, he would rework the clay. He would literally glob it all back together into a ball and start again. Sometimes it might need a little more water on it to make it softer, more pliable. What he didn’t do was throw it away. He also didn’t try to keep fixing something that was clearly not working. Once it reaches a point where it’s not balanced, where it’s wobbling out of control, the potter stops. He doesn’t keep adjusting and fixing, he stops. He takes it down and reworks it.

Here's the Thing: I could have kept trying with the first doctor. I could have kept going back with different studies and tried to convince him of different outcomes and directions of treatment. But the reality was I needed to go in a different direction. I could have thrown medicine out entirely and gone a different direction – lots of people have. But instead, I backed up and tried again with a different doctor. This time it seems to be working. God is definitely teaching me through her. We’ll see!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Next Crazy Thing

Image
Buckle in! This is a processing post so it is likely to be long and wordy and emotional and probably flawed in many ways. I thank you for your patience and anyone who makes it to the end gets bonus points in my book 😏.  Let's start with the info. I've been having progressively more intense, more frequent, and longer lasting migraines. Since my eye surgery in May, I've also been experiencing a great deal of nausea, almost daily. Sometimes meds help (with either), sometimes they don't. In addition, since the eye surgery, my double vision has intensified. My depth perception is shot, I'm regularly missing things I grab for, mistaking curbs for cracks in the sidewalk, bumping into walls or counters. Those are the three things that neurosurgery told us to watch for with regards to the shunt functioning properly: headaches, nausea, and vision changes. Now the vision changes were probably because of the surgery and the nausea was probably  because of the migraines, but th
Read more

At least it's not bad news

Image
  Radical tumor removal is not always possible because of the critical brainstem or diencephalic locations of some tumors. Tumor progression and eventual death are likely in such patients. Stereotactic radiosurgery for pilocytic astrocytomas part 1: outcomes in adult patients Kano et. al.  So my posts are usually preceded by a scripture verse, often an encouraging one. Today I needed to give you an insight into what I've been experiencing. From the time I was diagnosed with a brain tumor, about a year and a half ago, I was reassured that it was a "WHO grade 1 benign" tumor. I, mistakenly, took this to mean that it wasn't a big deal. Even when I was told in June that it had grown "slightly," I thought that meant they'd zap it with radiation and that'd be the end of it. Guess what, I was wrong. When my June MRI revealed growth, I was referred to the Tumor Center for treatment. Fearing a long, drawn-out process, I was relieved when they scheduled all my
Read more

When "Wait and See" Wouldn't Sound so Bad

Image
    Ten days after I received the call letting me know that they found something on the MRI I was sitting in the office of a Neurosurgeon.  I have no doubt that God orchestrated the circumstances that had brought me there, including a friend who is also dealing with a brain tumor recommending this clinic. But how could any of this be real? Only a couple of people knew what was going on, but there wasn't much to know before this appointment. All we had were a few key phrases on the MRI Study Result and our dear friend, Dr. Google.  I went into the appointment with the impression that the doctor would either recommend watching and waiting, doing another MRI in six months and seeing if anything changed, or taking it out right away.  In previous encounters where the option was to wait or do something I have vastly preferred doing something, but this time it was different. I had read about the potential complications of surgery and I was scared.  Not to mention, needing to act right awa
Read more