Hospitals take away much of our identity, some of our dignity, some of our humanity. Last year I submitted to a six hour surgery on my thyroid and tongue, removing tissue, cysts, bone and cartilage . . . Removing something that had never formed quite right in-utero, something that had given me ten years of difficult health.

Walking into the hospital that morning, stomach empty, I remember having the rest of my identity emptied too. Wear this gown, they said, put your clothes and shoes into this locker. Take out your earrings and take off your rings, send them with your husband. Lay on this gurney amidst a sea of other pre-surgery faces. Your husband can’t come any farther now. And so I journied forward, without a clue of myself, not a shred of my own clothing, nor an id, and trusted myself into the hands of masked and robed strangers who told me I would be okay. A cold room filled with cold and serious hands, a warm blanket given with compassion. A large needle in the arm and a few moments of sleepy fearfulness, then nothing.

I awake to the sound of hoarse animal crying, to an insistent beeping and bright, bright lights. I struggle and meet the resistance of endless lines wrapping this way and that around my body. Six hands push me back towards the bed, soft voices quiet me. It is then that I realize that the animal sound is mine own, the pain is my own; I can not move, I hurt and I am afraid. I am not free to pee or cough or speak. No words can come, only the hoarse cry. I know no one around me, for the masked and gowned are a different set than those who prepared me. Yet I somehow feel less afraid when I realize that three nurses are watching me. Maybe I am sicker than I realized; why are so many with me? But they give me peace.

Over the next day I navigate relatively quickly to an improvement in health and independence. I walk, supported, to the bathroom within a few hours though I nearly fall and am supported by the kind hands of one of my helpers as I complete the most ordinary and personal of tasks. I learn that they have removed something that they did not recognize but worry may be an essential calcium-regulating node. They are watching to see if I will plummet, if I will need calcium regulation multiple times a day for the rest of my life.

Since the back of my tongue has been cut out and the remainder reattached, it hurts to swallow, to breath, to try to talk, to cry. Drugs from the anesthesia have hit me hard anyway and I sleep and sleep and sleep. David appears shortly at my bedside and I hardly seem to care. I care about drugs that ease the pain in my throat and mouth, I care about soft hands that turn my body and readjust my wires, I care about the smooth straw in my mouth delivering heavenly cold liquid into the fire in my throat.

I woke up today remembering this helplessness. Remembering that I didn’t have a voice to speak my pain or my thoughts. Remembering how hard it was over the next few weeks to think about typing anything to express it either. I was able to move into and out of that experience with a fearful, quiet, confidence because I was convinced that God had planned it, had found my surgeon and led me to him, had given me this chance. I trusted that His plans were good and I was not disappointed. My surgeon wrote to me this week and I was reminded of the miracle that God did through him. Sheer miracle. The best thyroid surgeon in the Navy, the very man who would operate on the president himself, should he need this surgery. God provided him for me and gave me a chance to share God’s heart for him, too. The day I met him he briefly introduced himself, suggested that he do my surgery in the next two days (despite normal delays of one or two months), then sprayed a numbing spray in the back of my mouth and inserted a wide and long tube down my throat to look at my internal neck structures. It’s hard to swallow when the back of your throat is paralyzed; I was afraid but I trusted him, I trusted the One who had led me to him. I felt alone but I knew my very being there was a sign that I was so not alone, He was with me.

We are journiers . . . .we work so hard to maintain control, to limit pain of heart and body, to stay where we feel called to be, to help. We feel competent, we work hard, we improve ourselves and deal with our issues, we try to parent better than we were parented and to carry on relationships that don’t contain the same traps that our friends’ relationships do.

It’s an illusion. A thrashing, crying body clothed in hospital blue surrounded not by those we know and love and trust but by others who are equipped to help us. I am not competent here, not working through anything but my own pain. He’s the one who’s holding me, who has surrounded me with pain experts and readers of noisy machines. He’s the one who gives me pureed food to eat and allows me to enjoy nothing better than the feeling of softness in my throat. I am a journier; afraid to lose control, afraid to not have the answers. But sometimes it’s in being flawed, in needing help, that we will finally find His comfort. Cry out, for your God hears you. He will respond, He will answer, and do great and marvelous things which we can not understand. Cry out for your Redeemer hears you; He will redeem you, He will buy you back. He will hear your heart’s cry and He will answer. He will show you your worth and the limitlessness of value. He will comfort you with his tender voice and soothing hands . . . He will give you Peace.