A Blessing in Disguise

Only a week had passed since I had been released from the hospital, but here I was sitting in that cold examination room hearing the doctor tell me that in 4 days I was to go back to the hospital and get a port put in so that I could begin the chemo treatments.

Start the chemo? How can I possibly do that- my body is so weak I can barely even walk? The doctor examined the incision I had received two weeks earlier to get to the cancer that was slowing eating away at my body.  “The incision looks good,” he said. It did. I was amazed at how quickly that had healed up, but what about all the incisions inside of me?  They still felt raw and hurting, even the slightest move hurt. He continued the exam and I showed him a few red spots that had appeared a day earlier on the top of my leg.  “Hmmm looks like it may be shingles,” he said.  Then without missing a beat, he left me with instruction to call the hospital to set up my appointment for Friday to get the port.

I couldn’t take it in.  Get chemo already, in this condition!  It was like asking a mortally wounded soldier to go back up to the front line.  I wasn’t ready for my body to get knocked down again. What was the doctor thinking, and what on earth are shingles?

The rash got progressively worse so I went back to see the doctor.  “Yes, it’s shingles.” He said “ Unfortunately we will need to wait until it clears up to get the port.”

If you’ve had shingles, you know the agony. You also know there’s not a lot you can do to get rid of them. Just try to endure until they’ve run their course.

At first I didn’t see it- what God was up to.

Was I cursed?  Cancer, and now shingles!

Wasn’t one hard blow enough- did I really two?

“Maybe this is a blessing in disguise,” my friend Linda who had similar surgery said as she made plans to bring us several meals.  The pain, the burning, a blessing?  Really?  As I lay in my bed thinking, it took awhile, but I realized she was right.  I was much too weak and broken to start chemo.  I’m sure that God could of used other things to delay the start of chemo. But if there weren’t some compelling reason, the doctor would have gone along with his plans to get the port in and begin no matter how bad I felt. 

 The port wouldn’t go in for another two weeks, and the chemo wouldn’t start for 11 days after that.  By that time my shuffle had turned into a slow walk.  I was able to sit for more than a half hour at a time and I could turn in bed from one side to another without assistance.  I was far from being back to normal, but compared to a month earlier I was doing fine. The shingles were no fun, but they allowed me time to rest and recover.

A bloody broken body hung in the public square.

At first they didn’t see it- what God was up to.

Was He cursed?

After 40 lashes – did they need to crucify Him too?

 It took awhile, but a few days later they would understand.  

This was a blessing in disguise.

 Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”— so that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles, so that we might receive the promised Spirit through faith. Galatians 3:13-15 (ESV)

What did I learn?  To be thankful in all things, even shingles. That our times our in His hands.

He is watching over every part of our lives (the very hairs on our heads are numbered).

Unexpected, unwanted things may not be the curse that they first seem to be. 

Look closer, and wait- they may just be a blessing in disguise!