Psalm 30:2 O Lord my God, I cried out to you for help, and you restored my health.
As Thanksgiving was approaching, I had puréed pumpkin for pies, ground breadcrumbs for dressing and peeled baby onions in preparation for the dinner. Maybe it was the onions but suddenly tears came flooding to my eyes. My mind was reflecting back over the somewhat strange summer I had and all the blessings that came every single day. They chased me down like goodness and mercy.
The process was long and I expect involved. And this was still the beginning. Most of the time I didn’t think that I had major surgery however, as I would talk to people they would always say something like, ‘Wow, that was major surgery you had.’ At different times as someone would ask about my situation, they would also tell me about their own skin cancer case. It seems there are a lot more cases than you realize.
At the appointment that the doc was really excited about how much the flap had settled, I asked him, “so Doc, tell me, even with all your other patients, you remember what my nose looked like two weeks ago?”
The doc responded sincerely, “I remember all my patients that I have to cut into. It’s like I have a photographic memory recording all the procedures. Then it plays back in my mind and I see it and remember what it looked like at each visit.”
Thinking back on what the doc said, I don’t know if that would be a blessing or a curse. I guess we all do it in some form or another though, remembering some childhood memory, vacation or conversation. For me, it’s a blessing that the doc remembers how my nose looked at all the prior visits.
Isaiah 53:4 Yet it was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down. And we thought his troubles were a punishment from God for his own sins! But he was wounded and crushed for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace. He was whipped, and we were healed.
Most of what remains of my farming memories of my youth are old rusty things. Horseshoes and a one-row plow makes me think of my grandfather and all the miles he walked the rows of the potato fields. Chains and gears from our farm machinery are what I now use as plant hangers on my porch. One of those plant hangers is a stencil my grandfather made to identify our potato barrels. His initials were G. C. so he made the logo to be basically a C in a diamond, <C>. It can be seen in the above picture and on the barrels in pictures in The Crew. Over the years using it as a plant hanger, I have studied it for hours and noticed he had a small line on the C. I’ve come to the conclusion that the C is actually a combination of a G and a C. It might not be much, and it might be rusty, however, it’s a part of my heritage that replays in my memory that I love.
Isaiah 28:24-26 Does a farmer always plow and never sow? Is he forever cultivating the soil and never planting it? Does he not finally plant his seeds for dill, cumin, wheat, barley, potatoes, and spelt, each in its own section of his land? The farmer knows just what to do, for God has given him understanding.
Most of my blogs have been read, liked, shared and commented on by many. The Settling, the blog page in which I asked the doc about using “Bag Balm” to heal my stitches, seemed to be quite popular. I had kind of decided early on in my appointments that the doc probably grew up in a city. So when he questioned Bag Balm as my ointment of choice, it pretty much confirmed to me that he did not grow up on a farm. Maybe I’ll ask him at the next visit where he grew up. Many of my friends and family commented on how they grew up with Bag Balm in the house and still use it today.
Not only is it great for dry skin, chapped lips, diaper rash, cracked heels and of course, healing stitches; Bag Balm is also handy to have around for squeaky hinges, zippers and scrapes on the paw pads of your dog!! No household should be without at least a dozen cans!!!
At one visit with the doc, I asked him about the little bump on the bony section between the nostrils that hurt a lot if I touched it just right. He said, “oh, don’t worry about that, that’s nothing.” I probably don’t ask the doc the right questions. I should have asked him if there’s a stitch in there? Then he probably would have said something like, ‘yes, it will dissolve, or I’ll pull it out someday.’ I’m pretty sure that there probably is a stitch in there that’s holding the inner part of the nose in place. Like a basting stitch in my sewing world, and if I pull it out the whole flap would fall off and be on the floor with a bunch of threads and dustballs.
About two months after The First Miracle, the day the devil asked me to leave my job, I received a letter in the mail from unemployment. As you may recall, the devil was trying to prevent me from qualifying for unemployment benefits. The letter was the determination that I was not released from my position due to misconduct, as the devil was trying to convey. The staff at the Department of Labor had been researching my case for eight-weeks, yes eight-weeks, and determined that I was in fact doing the job I was hired and trained to do. The letter went on, therefore you are entitled to unemployment benefits. By this time I’d lost count of all the blessings, however it was somewhere around the four-thousandth miracle that had come to pass in a couple months!! Another Glorious Praise for the Lord We Serve!!!
Romans 8:28 And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.
There were so many things happening, working together, all at the same time, I sometimes could hardly keep up with everything. Around the same time I was waiting to hear about the unemployment, I was also waiting to hear about the health insurance. Remember Obamacare was not affordable, $1200.00 a month. I did the math, that’s like buying a good used car and paying off a five-year loan in one-year, while not eating or paying for fuel oil, … but I digress. The financial staff at the hospital were working on it and I had met with another lady that submitted paperwork for all the costs of the procedures to be paid. The next miracle!! Four-thousand and one!! Praise the Lord!! I’m glad my God caused everything to work together for my good and He was keeping track of everything, because I was a little busy in surgeries.
Another three months passed and it was time for me to do more paperwork which would pay any outstanding balances I had from the surgeries to date. The ladies at the hospital from the very beginning had said that the hospital would pay for all my bills and I believed them. We live in a paperwork world; your word or a handshake doesn’t mean as much today as it did a hundred years ago. I filled out the paperwork, prayed over it and returned it to the hospital staff.
A week later I received a letter from the hospital. Another bill probably. Usually I’d get two or three a week. I had an envelope on the table that I put them all in and it was overflowing. I kept them all just in case I needed them again for all this paperwork. Upon opening it, it wasn’t just another bill. It was another miracle!! Five-thousand twenty-eight!! It was a letter saying that all my outstanding bills would be paid!! How can anyone not Love our Lord and how He works EVERYTHING out for our good?!!!!
Sometimes we are so busy we forget to stop and count all the blessings given to us from the Lord. I tried to keep track of all of them during the nose bump journey by writing the blog to help others in a similar situation but I know I probably forgot some. Sometimes, like when I’m peeling onions, tears will come to my eyes and one of the summers strange happenings will replay in my mind. It wasn’t strange at all. It was a Blessing.
Psalm 105:1 Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim His greatness. Let the whole world know what He has done.
Happy Thanksgiving
The Nose Bump 