Rejoice Greatly!

Well, after months of not knowing what was going on or which direction we would be taking to address these crazy medical concerns, tomorrow is the day of surgery.  It's a different surgery than I was expecting, and I am super grateful for that!  I think preparing myself for something as crazy as open heart surgery has really helped me to not totally freak out over this.  A hunk of my skull? About 4 weeks until I feel like doing things? A gnarly headache for up to two months?  That is a piece of CAKE compared to a year until I am 100% like they promised me after open heart!  I've spent most of my time stoked over the way things have turned out, and I think that was okay.

This week, however, I started to get scared. 

Just being real, here.  I mean, just because it's not open heart surgery doesn't mean it isn't a major surgery!  This is my head we are talking about here!  The tumor is in the skull bone and is currently obeying the "rules" of bone, which means it is growing very much like a bone would and is very hard like bone.  It also means that it is staying inside the bone and has not traveled into the brain at this point.  It is placing pressure on the brain, but not too bad at this point.  Removing it will help with the pressure and hopefully a whole host of other things.  So yay!  Except that when I spoke with my doctor this week he informed me that one of the side effects of cutting into the bone is that sometimes people end up with permanent worse headaches.  

That one kind of threw me.  

A 4-5 inch long patch of hair missing?  I'm cool with that.  I've got a hubs who loves me and a God who designed hair to grow back.  A few weeks of feeling pretty awful?  No biggie, Jesus can handle that one for me.  

A chance of permanent WORSE headaches?  Um, yeah, that one sort of bothers me.

I know that my Jesus is still in control.  I know that He has a plan and that He loves me and that if I end up with these worse headaches He will have a beautiful plan in that too.  I know a ton of the right stuff with my head.  If I could just convince my worried nauseated stomach I'd be grand.  

Then this morning I read this:

And I just knew that The Lord was speaking THIS to ME!

I felt like He said specifically, 

"Rejoice greatly in the face of this scary surgery because I, your loving, powerful, able, caring King, am COMING TO YOU to meet you THERE, in the fear, in the pain."

Honesty alert here: I really don't like it when I feel my trust shaken.

I mean, who does right?!? But still, I hate it when I know all of the right stuff to say or do but I just can't shake the worry or fear.  That's why I am loving this word for me for this situation so much right now!  He is not saying pull it together Jo.  Get with it.  Suck it up. Don't you trust me?

No.  Instead he is saying, rejoice in Me.  I AM COMING.  Rejoice in that and I will bring the rest of it to pass perfectly.

Some days I need to really see how in control God is.  But it's not a complete picture of His power until I see that I have none of my own.  As I face this surgery, which includes 3 hours in the operating room, the rest of the day in ICU ("just in case" my doc said...who likes to hear "just in case"? Ha!) and then one night overnight as long everything goes well, I am nose to nose with my inability to do ANYTHING.  

But I CAN cling to His promises!  And this morning He has promised to meet me THERE, in the surgery, in the possible complications, in the recovery room, in my life!  And He keeps His promises.

So tomorrow morning I show up for a CT scan at 6:30 where they will shave part of my hair and put a stitch in the skin and then be able to use the ct scan like a navigator of old days would use the North Star and his star charts and know exactly where to make his incision. Crazy cool, huh? (Ps talking about that makes me want to watch Prince Caspian or some movie about ships on the sea) My surgery will begin at 8:30 am and I promise that Christian will update Facebook with how things are going. Thank you so much to everyone that is praying!!!  

Oh and please pray for my doctor!  His name is Dr. Malamed and we are pretty sure he is not a believer.  He is super nice and very skilled and we had a total peace about this the moment we met him, but he isn't saved.   So please pray for him to also meet my King in that operating room and recovery room too okay?  We KNEW when we met the guy for the very first time that Jesus wants to do something awesome with him so yeah, please just pray for him.  Thank you everyone!

Oh and also thank you everyone for praying for our Christmas celebration and for the gifts and verses and kind words of encouragement and for the Christmas dinner and just so many blessings!  We are feeling like princesses and princes over here, sons and daughters of a great King.  Thank you for letting Him use you to lift us up.  It was a very sweet day!