Full Circle

Three years ago today I received the call – the one that threw my family into a different orbit for some time to come. Lately, I’ve been pondering the last three years a good deal. I’ve noticed how much more “healed” I feel now. The Lord keeps impressing on me to notice these things…and to share them. So, today I share again.

THREE has felt very significant lately. After some very quick research, I found that THREE represents wholeness, completion. I experienced a moment of wonder when I found this information. In this particular journey, it has taken three years to feel whole again. This wholeness isn’t something I’ve achieved or worked out, it is something that has been gifted to me through the work of the Holy Spirit in so many different avenues of my life. Don’t read this as me saying my life is perfect and I am perfect – I am specifically referring to wholeness as it relates to the cancer journey that started on November 1, 2016. I can’t document for you a plan that takes you from Point A to Point B, but I can tell you that this gift isn’t for a select few, or for those who have only lived a moral life – it is for all. Jesus wants to redeem you and show you Himself and give your life purpose – let Him love you, release the burden that is on your shoulders. (Read Isaiah 43:1-2, really the whole chapter.)

To best illustrate what I have come to realize lately, I’ll share two milestones. They are vastly different in circumstance, but very significant to me.

First, I remember holding a baby for the first time after my mastectomy. I don’t remember where I was, when it was, or whose baby it was, but what I do remember is the flood of emotions that hit. There I was, holding something so precious, doing something that had always felt so natural, and nothing about it seemed right. The reality of the amputation I had just undergone engulfed me – I couldn’t physically feel the warmth of the baby, my muscles were strained because they were still healing and gaining strength. In short, I felt LESS THAN myself.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago at church. I had the absolute pleasure of holding the baby of a couple very dear to me during our worship service. During the service, we sang the lines “through the storms, He is Lord, Lord of all” – I looked down at this child I held who is such a miracle himself, and it just felt so right. In that moment I realized how much healing had taken place in my life – it was all I could do to maintain composure. Such a gift on so many levels, but I am thankful to have in that moment been made aware of feeling physically whole again.

My final milestone is a blessing that will sound deeply vain, but in truth, it shows me a glimpse of my Father’s deep love for me. I’m talking about hair. Living my entire life as a redhead, my hair is what people noticed about me, what I came to associate with me being me. And then I had cancer. The stricken looks on faces when people learned I would have chemo was almost unbearable. “Oh, but your hair…” I’ve shared before that as I was losing my hair, the Lord told me that “I am your covering.” Oh, He definitely was my covering. He showed me that my hair had nothing to do with who I am, regardless of how the world perceives me, and that I would be okay with or without it.

Honestly, living fully bald wasn’t so bad. But, living through the growing out was very, very difficult. I didn’t look like myself in the mirror. Some days I wanted to wear a sign that said “Chemo did this”. I just wanted to snap my fingers so that I would look more like myself and the outside world didn’t have to know what I had been dealing with, or worse, not know what I had been dealing with, and judge me on my appearance. But, as with so many things, the growth was in the waiting.

Today, as I type this post, my hair has fully grown back to it’s original length. Specifically at this moment, it looks exactly the same as it did most days in November of 2016. I’m not exactly the same, but I look it. I wouldn’t wish cancer on anyone, but I am a better human today than I was 3 years ago. I am a more contented Daughter of the King than I was then. I am deeply, deeply grateful for this gift of life.

If you’ve made it this far in my rambling, hopefully not too self-indulgent essay(?), my challenge to you is to notice when events in your life have come Full Circle. Pay attention, or you just might miss seeing the blessings or learning from the struggles.

With love,
Devin