August has been a hard month for me. A routine visit to the dermatologist turned up a a small spot of skin cancer above my right eyebrow.
I felt pretty good about it really. It was the slow growing kind. The kind that will disfigure but not threaten life. They’d caught it early. It was a small place. My bangs hang to the right, so I could cover up the new scar just like I’d been covering up, for the last two weeks, the raw place where they took the biopsy.
I had taken my books and laptop, ready to get some work done while I waited for the doctor to examine the first set of tissue. She would decide in the lab on site if the margins were clear or if she needed to go deeper. She’d done it a thousands of times. Her degrees on the wall read, “Mayo Clinic.” Yep- I was going to be fine.
The nurse set a calm tone with her sweet bedside manner as she prepped me for the outpatient procedure. The doctor came in cheerful and kind. She drew with a marker, close to my right temple. I could feel her making a circle and some dotted lines. She explained, “One is the area to remove, the larger area we’ll stitch up so it doesn’t pucker and scar badly.
She handed me a mirror. I was shocked by the inch and a half purple mark that started at the corner of my eyelid where bone meets socket and ran to my hairline. I wasn’t expecting that. But nothing could have prepared me for what she said next.
“You see where the mark is. There is a nerve that runs up your cheek into your forehead.” She gently motioned with her forefinger. Then she said, “Because of where the cancer is, there’s a chance we could affect that nerve. I don’t believe we’ll have to go that deep, but if that nerve was to be affected, it could paralyze the right side of your face.”
My lungs felt empty, like someone had knocked the air out. Then my lips begin to quiver like they do when I’m trying not to cry. She patted my arm and told me, “It will be okay. I think we’ve caught it early enough we won’t get near the nerve. But I do have to be clear about the risk.”
I felt like I was 8 years old again. All I wanted was my mama to hold me and make this go away. But here I was all grown up in this cold, sterile room, coming apart inside. They laid me back. Tears rolled down my left cheek and dripped onto the paper covering the exam table. I don’t know if there were tears from my right eye; my face was already numb from the anesthesia. I wasn’t sure if I’d ever feel the wetness of my tears on that cheek again.
I grit my teeth as I lay there, made tight fists with both hands, curled my toes in my Chacos and prayed over and over, “Jesus, please help me.”
As I recount this story, my heart pounds and my stomach churns.
My face ended up not being paralyzed but the whole experience was terrifying. And in the awkward, awful middle of it, I did the only thing I knew how to do- I prayed. It wasn’t high or holy, purposed or planned. It was a desperate cry from the scared little girl inside of me.
In preparing to write this post, I realized, if I had not been practicing prayer over time, things would have gone much differently that day. Fear and anxiety could have led to a panic attack instead. I might have said to the doctor before bailing, “Thank you very much. I’ll keep the skin cancer and a functioning face.” I would have freaked out way worse than I did.
Prayer has become my anchor. It’s what keeps me tethered when too many hard hits send me spinning around the pole. It’s what I do when I don’t know what to do. And it never fails me. Never. Ever.
Actually, it’s what I end up helping clients with most often. Various ways to “pray” through daily life- in the good and the bad. Maybe that’s not what we’re calling it in the moment, but that’s exactly what it IS- opening up space in their lives so they can experience the perpetual presence of the One who made them.
And tomorrow, I’ll share what I’ve learned. For the next 14 days, we’ll experiment with “prayer,” and help everyone find a non-threatening style of their own.
If you’re interested in joining us, you can watch the Facebook video where I talk more about the prayer challenge here. Or you can go here and get signed up now.
Here’s to making prayer a real thing we do- not because we have to, but because we want what comes with it.
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This article first appeared on The Purpose Dweller Diaries