It Was Worth It All

         While working in my kitchen, I was listening to The Mississippi Mass Choir’s 2005 song narrated by Reverend Benjamin Cone, Jr, “It Was Worth It All.” As he shared his testimony of colon cancer and coding while preparing to be released, my spirit perked up and brought a few things to my remembrance.

        The year had to be around 1994 or 1995. I began to feel a slight twinge in my side and decided to have it checked out. Normally, this was something I’d ignore, but I felt strongly that this time was different.

        At the emergency room, I explained that I was feeling some pain in my side, and while it was not extreme, I wanted to get checked because I had a history of ectopic pregnancy. (This is a pregnancy where the baby lodges in the fallopian tube rather than the uterus. It is always fatal for the baby and had nearly been fatal for me in a previous pregnancy. I shared that testimony in a 2016 post called I Believe in Miracles Because I Am One.) Anyway, some tests were run and confirmed I was pregnant. Further tests showed the baby was not in-uterine. The ER doctor began to prepare for emergency surgery.

        When I went into that emergency room, I was not thinking of surgery. I wasn’t even sure I was pregnant. The test showed I was only a few weeks along and I hadn’t even missed a menstrual cycle. Still, I was there for a reason. As they ran around getting things in order for surgery, I asked a nurse if she would do two things for me; find me a Bible and ask the doctor to come back in so that I could speak with him.

        The doctor arrived before the Bible and I told him I could not have surgery, not then anyway. He explained the dangers of allowing this pregnancy to proceed and I assured him I was well aware, still, I had no peace and could not proceed until God’s peace was mine. We went back and forth around the risks and legalities, but I would not be moved. I told him I didn’t know what the next day would bring, but I knew on that day I could not consent to surgery.

        When the exasperated doctor left me, the Bible arrived. I didn’t know what I was looking for. I just needed a word from God. Anything to help me understand what I was going through and why I was going through it. The Bible opened to Habakkuk 3. Now I have to be honest here, I’d never heard of Habakkuk before, let alone read it. Still, I read where it fell open:

 Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior. (Habakkuk 3:17-18 NIV)

         Then it came! The peace of God filled me and joy overflowed. It made absolutely no sense, but I was able to rejoice sitting behind that curtain in the emergency room. I didn’t understand what was going on still, but I knew God did and I trusted Him. He was with me and that was enough. I continued to read and verse nineteen said, “The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on the heights.”  I rejoiced some more. And then I slept.

        The next morning the doctor pulled back the curtain of my little ER room and shook his head. “I don’t know how you knew, but you were right. We looked at your ultrasound pictures again and there is a small cyst on your fallopian tube, but the fetus is in-uterine. Had we gone on with the surgery, we would have aborted your baby needlessly.” I smiled and praised God. 

       I know in my heart, this incident caused the doctor to consider matters of faith. It softened his heart towards God. That was why I went to the emergency room. That little twinge of pain didn’t warrant the trip, but God was up to something.

This year, so many have suffered so much; have lost so much. I pray that after reading this, you decide that can still trust God. Even if you don’t understand, especially if you don’t understand, trust the One who loves you perfectly. As James 1:2-4 says, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” Then go back to Habakkuk and say, “…yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.” I believe and declare, if you do this, some day you’ll also say with The Mississippi Mass Choir, “It was worth it all.” Not the hurt, not the pain but the faith earned and the lessons learned, it was worth it all.

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