A Grace Disguised: Blessings from a Hysterectomy

I lost my uterus on Monday, or more accurately, my uterus was surgically removed. And along with it, a snowman shaped fibroid tumor with a grapefruit-sized base and an orange for a top. What I discovered in this process was a mound of blessings that are continuing to surprise me.

Blessing #1: On May 26, 2008, I gave birth to full-term twins (37 months and 2 days), both clearing the six-pound mark. My fibroid protected them by preventing them from descending down into the birth canal. They were allowed to fully develop before entering this world.  Thank you, Mr. Fibroid for keeping my children safe.

Blessing #2: In the weeks leading up to my surgery, I confronted a layer of trauma and pain that needed to be dealt with. See “’Z” for Zeal’” to know the details.

Blessing #3: A couple of days before surgery, I had an “aha” moment. I realized that I am surrounded by a community that provides different things. While this sounds somewhat obvious, I was expecting one particular person in my life to meet all my emotional, physical, and spiritual needs. This was simply not fair to that person. The idea that one person would be able to meet everything is also contradictory to the Christian theology that we are the body of Christ – we all have different parts to play. What I came to know is that I was surrounded by so many different parts of the body. Some were medical professionals who tended to my physical needs. I had friends step forward who let me “freak out” about the magnitude of this loss. They held me emotionally. I was surrounded by people offering prayers. And other logistical people came forward to take care of the kids, provide transportation, cook meals, do laundry, etc. People did what they could; they did what they were good at. The parts came together and this week has run unbelievably smooth.

Blessing #4: My husband has been my hero. I have always been an independent who doesn’t need anything kind of a woman. This generalized into my relationship with my husband – I did not believe that I needed him for anything. This week, I needed him. I let myself need him. And he was there. He was there to listen. There to sit. There to take care of things. When I let go of my control issues, when I stopped micromanaging our household, I created space for Bill to be Bill. And I have not been disappointed.

Blessing #5: I stopped fighting against myself. I stopped insisting that I can do everything on my own; that asking for help is a sign of weakness. It finally became okay to have needs and wants. It became okay to be vulnerable. The last few times I have been hospitalized (2 childbirths and emergency gall bladder surgery this past April) I have fought against any help. I grew angry and irritable with those who wanted to help me. I was a terrible patient. This time, something clicked. It was okay to be a patient for I was surrounded by a community who was willing to walk through this with me. From nurses who rubbed my arm as I went under anesthesia, to my friends and family being physically and emotionally present, to the preschool staff at my kids school who sent cards and Pizza Hut gift cards, I was being held by the Body of Christ. And you know, it feels pretty great to be cared for and loved. I feel like I belong to a community; that I am valued simply because I am a fellow human being. I did nothing to earn such an outpouring of tenderness. I got to experience what Grace is truly about.

So it took major surgery to get to this point. I would not recommend having a full abdominal hysterectomy to learn such lessons, but I would not trade the space it has brought me to for anything.

And now to experience blessing #6. My ovaries stayed put, so I have no major hormonal change. And now I am thirty-four years old, and never ever, ever again have to experience PMS or another menstrual cycle. Free tampons at my house for anyone willing to come pick them up!

Superhero God, Come Slay My Enemy.

Prayer still feels awkward. I like the idea of having a conversation with God, of being close and intimate. But there is a part of me that fights against asking God to do certain things. At one point in my life, this would have been rooted in believing God did not care what I needed, or that if I asked I would surely be disappointed. These days it is rooted more in a fear of not wanting to manipulate God; not wanting to shrink God into my personal Genie-in-a-bottle.

This past Thursday I facilitated an all-day bully awareness retreat for a group of Catholic middle school students. In the hours before the retreat, I was having my usual ‘get up super early, read, pray, write’ hour. As I was thinking about bullies and victims, I started picturing my own enemies. I could easily call up the names and faces of the “mean girls” from school. As I recalled my experiences of being bullied, of feeling like the odd girl, the left out girl, the unwanted girl, the pain was still palpable.

And then I started thinking about some of David’s prayers in the Psalms for God to strike down his enemies and rescue him. As a wounded adolescent, I wanted to pray to a Superhero God. I wanted to shine an emblem in the sky and have my Batman God fly in and take out my enemies. I wanted to pray to the Superman God who would swoop in and rescue me. And if I am honest, I still want to pray those prayers now.

And then the next thought rolled in. Yes, I was victim to the mean girls in school. But I was also a really mean girl. I bullied. I made up horrible names to call my fellow classmates and teachers. I created games to try and make other girls feel so bad they would run off and cry. I am quite confident I am someone’s enemy. I am confident that I am someone’s (probably several someone’s) source of painful memories.

I am both victim and perpetrator. Bully and target. Friend and enemy.

Were my superhero prayers to come true, then I too should be struck down. For I am an enemy of God and my fellow humans.

My prayers lately have been more like groans. I share the struggles in my soul. I share the fears and worries that I am carrying around. But rather than praying to a superhero, genie-in-a-bottle God, I have started praying to Emmanuel, God with us. I cling to the promise, “I will never leave you, nor forsake you.”

This is a comforting prayer. God’s presence is indeed with me. God is with me in my discomfort. God is sheltering me under his wings. But his is also a humbling prayer. God is with me when I am an enemy. God is with the both/and parts of ourselves. He is with us when we are hurt and he is with us when we are hurtful. God’s mercy is present when I am wounded and his mercy and grace never fail when I am the perpetrator.

I believe that when we accept the both/and parts of ourselves, we find God’s compassion is also there. I also believe that when we own both parts of ourselves, we are more compassionate to our neighbors and our enemies.

Emmanuel, God with us.

Messy.

There are three nativity sets in my house. My favorite is a hand-carved wooden set commissioned by some villagers in Africa. It is truly magnificent, both from an aesthetic purpose and in terms of social justice issues. The second is a hanging Advent calendar made from Fisher Price’s “Little People.” There are twenty-five figures (animals, shepherds, magi, angels, and of course Mary, Joseph, and Jesus), one for each day in December. My kids take turns pulling the daily figure and sticking it onto the manger scene. They grow in excitement with each new figure for they know they are one day closer to Christmas. There is one other “toy” nativity that sits on our coffee table. I love watching my three preschoolers act out various scenes and narrations. “It’s okay Jesus, we are your mommy and daddy.” My four-year-old informed me that the “Stable story is stuck in her head. You know, the one with shepherds, angels, and Mary, Joseph, and Jesus.”


I love the purity the nativity scenes add to my house. I love the enthusiasm and anticipation that comes so naturally with the Advent season. But I think we are missing something.

I started pondering and meditating on the birth story. And then I thought about my giving birth stories. They are bloody messes complete with afterbirth and slime. And yes, one does “forget” about the pain of childbirth the moment you look into your newborn’s eyes, but the reality is childbirth is painful. Jesus was not magically lifted out of Mary’s womb. He did not come out shiny and clean. While I am sure Mary had that same smile that most new moms cannot keep from happening, odds were she was exhausted. And maybe, if Mary was anything like me (which I cannot even compare myself to her selfless obedience), she was just a little annoyed that her husband got to experience all the joys of a new child without having the nine months of gestation complete with morning sickness, sleepless nights, swollen ankles, and an ever increasing body size that no longer fits in a restaurant booth. And we have not even spoken of the hours of hard labor.  Childbirth is messy.

While I have no intention of ruining the cleanliness of my children’s nativity scenes, nor do I plan on teaching them about the messiness of childbirth at this juncture of their development, I do wish to pass on the message that all presents do not come wrapped up in pretty little packages with bows on top. Sometimes life’s greatest blessings are discovered in the midst of a mess. In the case of grace, the package both entered and exited life a bloody mess.

Lost and Found.

For the past few weeks, one particular passage of Scripture has flooded my thoughts – the parable of the lost sheep. My gut told me that after I completed the ABC’s series, this would be a topic to write about. And then, wouldn’t you know, this morning’s Gospel reading was this parable. Perhaps I cannot ignore this prompting much longer.

When I get into a really deep funk, I find myself wanting to watch Girl, Interrupted. Not exactly an uplifting, boost your spirits kind of a film, but I am drawn to two particular scenes. One is when Winona Ryder’s character has her break through moment and decides not to play the part of crazy girl any more. It is a decisive moment in which she chooses healing rather than succumb to her depressive thoughts. The second scene is the climax of the movie. Angelina Jolie’s character begins shouting to her small audience of fellow mental patients, “There are just too many buttons. Why doesn’t someone come and push my buttons and tell me the truth about me . . . .” I resonate strongly with this desire to be found; for someone to come and rip the truth out of me.

There are no kind words to describe being lost. Panic and terror scratch the surface. The world is confusing. It is difficult to orient one’s self. When we are emotionally lost, it is difficult to discern the truth about our self. For Angelina Jolie’s character, the truth she believed about herself is that she was a “slut, a whore, and her parents wished she were dead.” When we are disoriented, the lies of the world can seem like our actuality. In my own state of loss, I longed for someone to reflect my perceived truth – I was damage goods, unlovable, and not worthy to be alive. I looked for mirrors to reflect my self-image of lies. I dated a few men that confirmed my perceptions. I aligned myself with a few toxic friends and systems that validated my internal beliefs. In the world of psychobabble, we would call this a self-fulfilling prophecy. We find what we believe.

Because the world I associated with confirmed my own lies, I had no reason to not believe the same held for God. God was distant and uncaring. I was unlovable even to God. My image of God was no different than the images I had of the world and my fellow human beings.

I did not know I was lost. I did not know I had oriented myself to lies.

My path back to God has come by grace. I believe that God has been relentlessly pursuing me. Despite my kicking and screaming, despite my spitting in Jesus’ face, despite shaking my middle finger towards the heavens, God has not stopped looking for me. At some moment, perhaps in a series of several small moments over several long years, I stopped insisting that I was not lost. I stopped running away from the God who was chasing me. I fell on my face and reluctantly said, “Okay, you got me. You found me. Now show me who you are.”

I have spent the last year unlearning what I thought I knew about life, Jesus, religion, and myself. Many years ago while living in Vietnam, a friend said to me, “Put your head against the Shepherd’s chest and follow his heartbeat.” It took me ten years, but I believe this is how I am now oriented. I started getting up early, and then even earlier spending time reading, writing, praying, and mostly just trying to listen and learn. I had a spiritual director suggest to me that I simply allow Jesus to teach me who he is. I started reading the Gospels with open eyes. Who is this Jesus? I came to understand that God was not chasing me to be annoying, to shame me, or to force me into submission. What I discovered was a grieving Shepherd looking to bring me, his lost, scared, little sheep home.

“Z” as in Zeal.

Well, I did it. This is the last letter in the ABC’s of Healing series. For this last entry, I will write about my own spiritual healing and transformation. I would love to hear yours as well via the comment section or through e-mail.

The Buddhists believe that transformation occurs in four different means, one being suffering. Christianity has a similar notion – suffering produces perseverance, which produces character, and that leads to hope. I believe for me, it was a willingness to walk the path of suffering, a willingness to face my fears and wounds that has led (is leading) to healing. I do not say I have arrived, for I believe that we cannot reach perfection in this life on earth. I would say with confidence I am moving towards hope; I am moving along the path of healing.

I grew up in a conservative, evangelical environment where everyone talked about their “personal relationship with Jesus” and how this filled them with so much joy. I never “got it” and carried around a great deal of shame because of my inability to “feel Jesus’ presence.” What I did not realize as a child and adolescent is that I would not “get it” in the state I was in – self-protective, non-feeling, and numbed-out. It is hard to “feel” connected with another living in isolation, afraid to let anything or anyone get close to me. I was a traumatized kid who ingenuously learned to protect myself by feeling nothing and getting close to no one.  I was really good at faking it.

While my ingenuous coping skills kept me from dying (and I mean that literally and figuratively), they did not translate well into a religious environment that used “feeling” as a measure of one’s spiritual strength. This was not the only measure. Because I failed at that one, I became zealous about the others – reading my Bible, memorizing my Bible, wearing Jesus T-shirts, doing service projects, going on mission trips, not having sex, not doing drugs or drinking alcohol. From the outside, I looked the part of the perfect Christian girl . . . really, to an annoying extreme. I was zealous about Jesus purely from an external perspective. On the inside, in my soul, I was barely breathing.

Transformation and healing did not take place overnight. I still get a little envious of those people who had a “breakthrough” moment that changed their life forever, but that is not how it happened for me. My transformation has truly come out of the path of suffering. It has been a slow and careful process of peeling back layers of stories; of unpacking the thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations that each layer brings. The peeling is not constant. I still have fun, I relax, and I truly enjoy my life. It is also not forcing the layers to come apart, but rather noticing that a layer is ready and then gently go with that.

I had a major layer come off this weekend (and is still quite a bit raw this morning.) It had been years since anything this strong was ready to be peeled away and processed. And thank goodness those layers do not come often, for they are quite painful when they come. But I welcomed it (not with a smile but more with a "Oh crap!"). Ten years ago, when a layer like this would have arisen, I would have done anything and everything to stomp it out. This kept me fighting against myself, and in the fight I vacillated between anger and depression. I had unhealthy ways of checking out to avoid the pain. Fighting, avoiding, numbing, and isolating are not exactly conducive for experiencing intimacy and connection. Healing occurs in the midst of intimacy and connection.

This weekend is a good example of where I am at now. As my husband put it, I had the perfect storm. I have trauma in my history and one thing about trauma it tends to recycle when a trauma survivor’s own children reach the age when the abuse began. Storm number one, my oldest daughter has reached that age. Storm two – I spent two days at a trauma conference learning a new processing technique.  Enough said. Storm three, I am having a hysterectomy a week from today. Words like body betrayal, naked, sexuality, exposure, vulnerable are all running rampant through my head. These storms collided this weekend. The layer was ready to be peeled back and processed.

Unlike the past, I did not run from the pain. I faced it, I felt it, and I shared it with a couple of trusted people. I did not feel it constantly this weekend – there were times when I contained it in order to tend to my parenting responsibilities. But then I would take it back off the shelf and sit with it. I sat with it alone. I sat with it in prayer. I sat with it in writing. I allowed a couple of people to sit with it alongside me. Healing came (and will continue to come today, tomorrow, and every day) because I was intimate and connected with my own soul, with God, and with others.

When we avoid our stories, avoid our layers, we are like a movie set. It looks like a real buildings, but there is nothing on the inside. If we are people of faith, our spirituality may look real on the outside, but internally it is empty. Walking through the path of suffering, though not always pleasant, leads to a beautiful and hope-filled life. For this, I am now zealous.