My Real Life Miracle in the Costco Parking Lot

I noticed it for the first time on a morning walk. I pushed the stroller, enjoying the sunshine, fresh air and my baby girl babbling, but something was different.

I rubbed the skin on my index finger where it bends. It felt like a tiny piece of gravel stuck under my skin. It was slightly uncomfortable, but as I went on with my day, I forgot about it. Caring for a baby doesn’t leave a lot of time to think about yourself. In those very early months I would add “trim nails” to my to-do list because I would keep forgetting and by the end of the day I didn’t want to get off the couch to get the nail clippers. It’s a new kind of tired.

Time went by and the tiny piece of gravel grew and I knew. It was another cyst. I’ve had them before and they run in my family unfortunately. They are more commonly located on the scalp or wrist, but I like to break the mold I guess. After making a few phone calls I discovered I would need to see a hand specialist because of all the nerves and tendons that make a hand so delicate to treat.

If you know, or you’ve read some of my older blog posts, you know that I do not do well with anything medical. I don’t watch hospital dramas, I close my eyes when I get blood drawn and I get anxious walking into a doctor’s office even if I’m not the patient. I’ve experienced medical trauma as a young child and those memories aren’t easy to shake. Read more about that here.

When I made the appointment with the hand specialist, I realized that I would probably have to have some type of surgery after poking around on google (broke my google rule). Mind you, it was only a few months ago that I underwent a C-section after a 38 hour labor with my daughter. I had yet to fully process and heal emotionally from that and here I was faced with yet another medical situation.

So I told myself, “you’ve had a C-section. Your nightmare happened and you survived. So you can do this. End of story.”

While there is truth in that statement, it is missing something: compassion.

I decided I would attack this problem full force. I made the appointment, did x-rays, was told it would require surgery and medication and I would probably have to stop nursing and I’d need physical therapy afterwards. All of this was scary, but it made me especially sad to have breastfeeding my daughter up in the air. But again I told myself, “be tough. You can do anything. After all you’ve had a C-section.”

The first speed bump to my surgery came when they told me they would not do the surgery until my cardiologist cleared me for the surgery because of the heart murmur I had when I was pregnant. When I called my cardiologist for clearance, I was told I would have to come in for a check-up because it had been over a year since they last saw me. I was so frustrated. I didn’t want more time to anticipate this dreaded surgery and lose my nerve, but it was about two weeks before I could be seen by the cardiologist. Thankfully my heart is in good condition and I was cleared for the surgery.

Ever since the initial consultation, my anxiety spiked. My insomnia was growing worse each night and I was having daily flashbacks of my labor and delivery. I felt alone and I wished I could pull myself together, but I didn’t know how. Fear has a way of isolating me, thinking I must be the only one. Mr. Engineer encouraged me to return to counseling. I wanted to return after the birth of my daughter, but I came up with so many excuses to prevent me. One of those excuses: the cost of counseling – hard when you are no longer making a paycheck. I realized it was costing me in other ways so I made an appointment the week of the surgery. It’s been the best thing for me.

Something else happened a few days before the surgery. Mr. Engineer received an email from our insurance company informing us the hand specialist was out of network and we received a huge bill (our eyes popped out of our head a little) from the consultation and for the x-rays. Mr. Engineer and I were confused as we had confirmed they were in-network before ever stepping foot in that office. I spent the next day on the phone with billing and after much confusion, we discovered there had been a billing error made. They still couldn’t give me the specific time my surgery would occur even though it was supposed to be the very next day.

While waiting, I had been asking God to heal me. I kept asking Him to do his own surgery while I was sleeping at night in hopes that I would wake up and it would be gone. After hanging up the phone, I cried out to Him again. “Isn’t there another way?”

Now this is where it gets a little weird. I ended up finding something called Red Desert Clay through a Google search on natural remedies for cysts. There were pages and pages of testimonials from people who drank this clay and saw their cysts disappear. I was more than skeptical, but with encouragement from Mr. Engineer, I postponed the surgery and decided to try it out. That same day, I had started reading a book called The Broken Way by Ann Voskamp. Directly after finding out about the Red Desert Clay, I opened up that book to rest and read while baby girl napped. Ann was talking about a package of clay figurines that a friend had sent to her. Not just clay figurines, but red clay figurines. I stopped reading. I started looking up at the ceiling and laughed, “God, are you trying to tell me something?”

I called my mom and told her about the clay and the book and on and on. “Am I crazy? Do you think it could work?” And my mom reminded me that God can use anything. He even used mud to make a blind man see, so why not a little clay healing?

So I ordered the clay. I drank it for two days. The third day I was gone all day and forgot. The fourth day: My cyst was gone.

I KNOW RIGHT?!?

I had my own little miracle in the Costco parking lot! I was holding baby girl while shutting the car door. The cyst had gotten to a pretty uncomfortable size and interfered whenever I was doing any type of activity so I was surprised that I felt nothing when shutting the car door. I looked down and it was gone. Completely gone. I have never been in a better mood while dodging enormous carts and putting huge boxes of chicken in my cart. God is so good.

There was another way. I thought pushing myself to do the hard thing was what I had to do. Face your fears. Grit your teeth. Don’t be a baby. But there was a more compassionate way. I am thankful that this whole incident helped me to see that I needed to give myself permission to process my birth story, among other things. I needed to slow down and stop running from the fear and pain. This is the harder approach for me personally! I’ve spent much of my life trying to be tough and keep it all together, but I’m giving myself permission to be human. It doesn’t have to make sense to anyone else.

I hope this encourages you if you are walking through something difficult or something you feel like you don’t have the right to be so hung up on. Everybody has their stuff and this just happens to be mine. But know that God is right in the middle of it all and He wants to show His love for you. And sometimes it sounds crazy and looks like drinking clay, but that’s okay.