A Ministry of T-Shirts

 

 The coolest things in my life have often started with a little idea and rolled from there. Back when I was first diagnosed with a brain tumor and had to undergo multiple surgeries, my sister-in-law sent me a couple of shirts in the mail. It was a sweet and thoughtful thing to do, and I bet she had no idea what it would lead to! 

 I wore the shirts she gave me to appointments with the intention of keeping life a little lighter. I knew it would brighten my spirit and hoped it would give the nurse, technicians and doctors I interact with a smile as well. And it did! I bought a few more shirts along the way. Sometimes they had to do with brain tumors, sometimes EDS (Ehlers-Danlos Syndromes), sometimes they just expressed how I was feeling.

 It got to the point that when we hit a roadblock or a new challenge in my health journey, my husband would say, "It's time for a new shirt!" I had collected shirts about MRIs, shirts about brain tumors, shirts about EDS, shirts that just shared my emotions. Then, as I approached radiation therapy, of course I needed a new shirt!

 I wore it on my first day of treatment, and the technician that brought me back told me that it was perfect, both because of what it said and because of the neckline and how it laid on my shoulders. You see, the mask that they make has to fit EXACTLY. The smallest millimeter of difference and they're shooting the wrong thing. So, if I was to wear a hoodie for example, I'd have to change into a gown for treatment. But because all of my t-shirts have a wide neckline that falls below the mask, I didn't have to change! 

 How did I find so many t-shirts with this neckline? I didn't. One aspect of my EDS is that I cannot tolerate necklines that lie above my collar bone. They make me feel like I'm choking. So, for years now, I've altered t-shirts that I've bought or that were given to me. I simply cut alongside the neck's ribbing and then fold the edge over double at about 1/2" and sew it up. It used to take me 45 minutes to an hour to do one shirt with all the measuring, cutting, ironing, pinning and sewing. Now, I've got it down to a science and I can do up two or more shirts in the span of one Star Trek episode (not counting Lower Decks since they're shorter). 

 We got a couple of days into treatment and my husband asked me, "How many t-shirts do you have?" I went and counted them and found that I had 20 shirts I'd collected over the years with fun sayings. But, at that time, I was planning on 30 days of treatment. Yes, of course I could re-wear some of the shirts, but in our family, we do nothing by halves! So, my husband tasked me with finding ten more brain-specific shirts so that I'd have enough to wear a different shirt each day of treatment. I scoured the internet, scrolling through Amazon, Walmart and Etsy. I found some great ones!

 

 But this one was the best of the best of the best. 

 You see, not only did it have to do with radiation therapy, but it spoke to the strange aspect that the radiation "tickled" my olfactory nerve and caused me to smell something that wasn't actually there! How perfect can it get? My Mom even got in on the fun and gave me a couple for my birthday!

 

 While this was a huge blessing to me through having just the right style of shirt to wear for treatment and speaking to my heart through the shirts' messaging, it turns out I wasn't the only one being blessed. Before long, the technicians and nurses, even my doctor, began watching out for my shirt each day. The nurses would stop me in the hall on my way back to treatment so they could read my shirt. My techs would stop and read my shirt before putting on my mask. My fellow patients in the secondary waiting room would read and comment on them. I was the t-shirt lady!

 So, of course, when I reached the end of treatment, I had to give my team something to remember me by. Shutterfly had an awesome deal on magnets with free shipping, so I jumped on it! I made the magnets pictured at the top of this post to pass out to all of the people that had come to mean so much to me over the last couple of months. 

Here's the Thing: Did I have the gospel printed on these shirts? No. None of them even had a Bible verse on them. But were people able to witness the joy of the LORD in me? You'd better believe it! More powerful than handing someone a tract is having them see the beauty God has planted in my heart and ask me where it comes from, and that happened over the course of treatment. Can wearing a T-shirt be a ministry? I think so!