Biopsy Day

Today I will undergo testing for a large thyroid nodule that came to my attention this summer. At first, I thought that maybe I was just getting an old woman neck. But when I realized that women aren't supposed to have Adam's apples and that other people noticed it, too, I figured that my time had come.

You see, nurses are either hypochondriacs or the worst patients ever. I tend to be the latter, which means that without something growing out of the side of my head, I'm not likely to pursue medical treatment. I figure, "It's not nearly as bad as that one thing I saw that one time...." Then I distract myself with that story for a while and push it all aside.

The doctor didn't hesitate in ordering a biopsy, which was expected. I'm not exactly thrilled about having a needle placed in my neck multiple times, but it certainly isn't the worst scenario. I will receive the results in another week and a half.

This really is the first time that I have been faced with my own mortality. There have been a few memorable near miss car accidents. Those lasted but a split second and left me with weak knees and a racing heart. This has been a bit different. It's the reality that this body truly is just a tent. Just a temporary house that will be declining in its own ways through the years.

I could easily use logic to get me through this process. Oh, I've studied the facts. 90% of thyroid nodules are benign. Thyroid cancer rarely spreads, if so it is usually in those over 70. Otherwise, this cancer's treatment is fairly uncomplicated and highly successful.

But, honestly, I don't want to miss the opportunity to grow in my faith regardless of the outcome of today's tests. I've been coming back to these verses, ones that I've known for years, and asking for deeper understanding.

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. -Romans 5:1-5

But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. -Phil 3:14