The Abidible Podcast
You love God. You want to abide in Him through His Word. But you just don't know where to start. You're in the right place! Be encouraged weekly as you learn to abide in the Bible yourself. Learn alongside your host, Kate, who is just a regular wife and mom (like you?) whose life has been transformed by learning to study the Bible on her own. If she can, you can! You're meant to be here, friend.
The Abidible Podcast
#065 "Healing After Surgery: My Journey with Endometriosis"
After years of suffering with debilitating symptoms, Kate has just emerged from life-changing surgery with renewed health, clarity, and perspective. This deeply personal episode takes you through her journey with Stage IV endometriosis – from mysterious symptoms that doctors struggled to diagnose, to finding specialized care, to the transformative surgery that revealed just how extensively this disease had infiltrated her body.
The pathology results were staggering: endometriosis had invaded Kate's ovaries, uterus, fallopian tubes, appendix, colon, rectum, and more. Multiple organs were fused together by adhesions, explaining why even simple movements felt excruciating. Most surprising has been the dramatic improvement in her mental clarity, energy, and emotional stability since surgery – demonstrating how profoundly this chronic inflammation was affecting her brain chemistry and entire well-being.
Throughout this health battle, Kate's faith has been both tested and strengthened. Some might wonder how anyone would want to worship a God who "allowed" such suffering, and in this episode Kate answers by sharing her biblical understanding of brokenness, healing, and unconditional faith. The transformation Kate experienced hasn't just been physical – it has reinforced her conviction that even in our darkest moments, God remains present and faithful.
For anyone suffering with endometriosis or chronic illness, this episode offers both practical insights and spiritual encouragement. And for those questioning where God is in their pain, Kate's story provides a framework for understanding suffering through a lens of hope rather than despair. Join her in celebrating this new chapter and the miracle of waking up each day without chronic pain for the first time in over a decade.
If this episode encourages you, consider supporting the show or becoming an abidible+ member through Buy Me a Coffee (linked below).
Introducing abidible+
☕ Become a Member ☕
☕ Buy Me a Coffee ☕
Important Links:
Next Podcast Series: Ask Us Anything (<--Submit a question)
Next Abidible Study: "Into the Wilderness
Try our Free Demo Study
Abidible "How to Study the Bible" Course
Subscribe + Enter to Win a Free Study
----
Thanks again for listening. If you know someone who would be blessed by what you just heard, please share The Abidible Podcast with them. Help us spread the word so we can make MUCH of the Word. Be sure you are following our podcast so you’ll be notified when new episodes drop. And finally, if you’re enjoying this series, please take a moment to give us a review or become a monthly supporter.
You can:
Learn more about us at abidible.com
Follow us on social media
Email us anytime with questions: hello@abidible.com
---
"Rhodesia by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Artist: http://www.twinmusicom.org/"
Hey guys, this is Kate from Abitablecom and you're listening to the Abitable Podcast. I'm just a regular wife and mom who's had my life transformed by learning to study the Bible on my own. If I can, you can. On this show, I help you know and love God more by abiding in Him through His Word yourself. Hello, I've broken away, snuck into my office and I'm sitting down attempting to do a sneak attack podcast that nobody knows about, just because I can't walk by this office one more time without coming in and at least giving you guys an update. I miss talking to you so much. It's been so hard to walk by my office and see my microphone and my desk collecting dust and collecting gifts and cards from you guys. Oh my gosh, you've prayed for me. You have loved me so well during this pre-surgery, surgery and post-surgery period. I would love to give you an update.
Speaker 1:I know some of you follow me on social media, but I know some of you don't, and so, other than what you hear on the podcast, you may not have any idea how things went. If you had been following the podcast for any period of time, you knew that I had been dealing with all kinds of health complications, for I mean 10 years, over 10 years, with doctors trying to figure out different things that could be causing it. Lots of blood tests, lots of changes, including personal lifestyle, health, exercise, diet, it. Lots of blood tests, lots of changes, including personal lifestyle, health, exercise, diet, mattress, sleep all that kind of um attempts, all those kinds of attempts that I made to try and see if I could feel better and overall, I just would describe how I had been feeling for a long time as garbage. Now, um, you may have heard me say during the lead up to my surgery, which happened on August 19th, that I knew I had endometriosis. They had discovered it when I went through all my infertility treatments with my son around 2010. But the doctor did an ablation procedure at that time when he was in there laparoscopically doing other things and gave me a heads up that it would come back with a vengeance after pregnancy.
Speaker 1:But I did not understand just how serious endometriosis can be. I just thought it was like oh well, I'm just going to have bad weeks a couple of times a month and that's just how it is and I'll need to endure and that's just my life. I had no idea that there was an alternate procedure, and I also didn't know that it could affect so many areas of your life, including your mental health, your digestive health, um, your muscular and nerve health. Like inflammation is no joke, and that's what endometriosis is. And so, through the gracious hand of God, he led me.
Speaker 1:First of all, the pain got so bad that there really wasn't an alternate option. I had to find something, and so, when we took my IUD out in January, my symptoms just like exploded. It got way worse, worse and worse each month. And, lo and behold, god reminded me of a Facebook group that I had been added to like eight years ago, when I had been, in passing, had a conversation, having a conversation with a friend who also had endometriosis and had had surgery to remove it as well as a hysterectomy, and she had said oh, do you know about Nancy's Nook? I want to say it here on the podcast in case you or anyone you know has endometriosis, because you need to send them to this Facebook page, nancy's Nook Endometriosis page. It's like a self-guided with 225,000 women. One in 10 women have endometriosis, by the way.
Speaker 1:I didn't know. That Makes sense why there's so many women in this group, and more and more people are becoming aware about how invasive and destructive and pervasive this disease is. Anyway, I don't want to make this a podcast about endometriosis, but it's a great resource. And so I went on there and started reading and started seeing these women describe the all-encompassing, life-altering, destructive power of endometriosis and I was like that is me. I didn't realize that the pain I was waking up in every single morning across my back and my shoulders and my mood swings and my low energy and my brain fog and my dietary stuff like digestive, like just bloating, like feeling I was like like I was four or five months pregnant after eating a meal, just like constant discomfort and exhaustion and then terrible sleep. I was like, oh, all these women are describing my story.
Speaker 1:So I went into the resources for doctors to see, okay, well, is there a doctor? And I had done this, like I think briefly, several years ago when I was like I wonder if I should look more into the endometriosis thing, and I had seen that there was a doctor local but realized that she was out of network. So I quickly moved on because I didn't think it was important enough to spend that kind of money and so I had briefly, like, looked at this resource. But circling back now, what happened is, as I'm going through the states and the list of the states on the list of doctors internationally, but also just in the US, I'm realizing, oh my gosh, like most states only have one, some don't have any, and so I'm scrolling, scrolling, scrolling to Washington and sure enough, there's only one doctor, and it is that same doctor. She's still in practice and she's only 15 minutes from my house. And so I think, oh my gosh, like I need to look into this, and I did.
Speaker 1:They were amazing at the office, they had a cancellation. They got me in in two weeks for my consult. She did a ultrasound. I had just had an ultrasound done a month prior with my own OB and they found like one 10th of what this doctor, who is skilled and trained I'm not slamming my OB, cause I really liked her but they found, you know, 10 times more than what my own doctor had just seen with an ultrasound that I had had a month prior. Um, and she, you know, answered all of my questions and looked at me and finally was the first person that understood and was like you know, it makes a lot of sense. I this is the reason you've been feeling the way you've been feeling and we can help and we can fix you.
Speaker 1:So I scheduled my surgery for August and leading up to it, um, things got worse and worse and worse. And April, when I had met with her, she was like, do you need any like hormone help or any other medication, help with the pain? And I was like I'll be fine. But by the time I made it to and I said that to her the morning of my surgery, I said I am barely hanging on. It had gotten so much worse even in those few months, and so I was just really ready, I was apprehensive, I knew God had me. I'm really grateful that I've been abiding with God and I want to talk about that here with you in a minute. But I'm really grateful that I've been abiding with God in the way that I have, because it helped prepare me to go through that.
Speaker 1:It's scary to be put under. It's scary when you're a mom to, yeah, go through that kind of procedure and be put to sleep and know that complications and scary things can happen. This is not necessarily a routine procedure, but it's not. Like you know, people do well, people do fine. It's just a long over five hours, at least for me, is what they had me scheduled for. So it was a little bit hard to be put under, but like I just and my husband knew, like Jason knew, my family knew my friends it's like I needed to have this procedure done and so I did, and it was a little over five hours, and when man it's still like it's hard to take a deep breath because I was intubated for so long and I haven't talked this much. So when I take a deep breath I'm still working on my breathing exercises. Full confession, I should be doing it more frequently, blowing into that little thing.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you guys know, if you ever had surgery, but yeah, they came out and confirmed everything that they had anticipated Seeing in there. Endometriosis is tricky because it's not easily detected, confirmed, apart from surgery, and this was a robotic surgery. And so it just was amazing for my family to hear I was still groggy and waking up, but for my family to hear that it was bad and the surgery needed to be done. This doctor performs excision of endometriosis, and so not only was she going to be cutting out any spots where she saw endometriosis, which she anticipated would be all over, but also to take my uterus because of adenomyosis. The tissue was on the inside and my uterus was three times too big, and so we knew that she was going to be doing that. But there were several other things that they found. So it was just necessary and amazing.
Speaker 1:And God his hand in bringing me to this conclusion. You know he had tried prior, the resources had been there prior, but I didn't. I didn't know, I didn't know it was this serious and that I would need to. Um, I wish I had you know. So spread the word. If you know anybody who has massive um painful monthly cycles and knows that they have endometriosis, it's only going to get worse. Like, spread the word for them to go take care of it and take care of it. It's worth the money. I mean I'm telling you, like I'm, it is every um, every cent well worth it for how I already feel, um, which I want to talk to you about.
Speaker 1:So yesterday I got my pathology back. Um, I know this isn't like a Bible study podcast, so I'm having like a little bit of a hard time talking in this detail about it, but I guess what happens like this is what I'm told. I hope is that you know when we do life the way that we have. I mean, we've done 60 plus episodes together here on the Abideable podcast and I do share a lot of my life and my story as we learn the Bible and as we study the Bible together, and so certainly you don't have to listen to all these details if it, if it's not interesting to you, but this is my story and it's also a testimony of what God has done.
Speaker 1:I did not realize how sick I was. So yesterday I got my pathology back from the doctor's office and had my phone call with the nurse and they do these cases all the time and I'm not saying that she was saying that this was the worst case that she ever had, but she confirmed for sure that it was stage four, the worst kind of endometriosis that you can have, and there were several times where she actually had to look up words that she had not seen used before by pathology. And also one thing that really stuck out to me was that my adenomyosis in my uterus, which is again where uterine tissue grows I'm reading their report here grows deep into the muscle of the uterus. It's super rare, I guess, for the pathologist to officially call it that in the report, even when the surgeon knows it's there Usually the sample. That's because usually the sample isn't significant enough to warrant a formal diagnosis. But she listed mine pathology I mean listed mine as deep adenomyosis, and so the nurse said that she had never once seen a pathologist document it that way. So it was pretty bad.
Speaker 1:Here's the list of the rest of what they found inside. Both of my ovaries contained endometriomas, which are cysts filled with endometriosis tissue and blood. One even had hemosodesserin. I can't even pronounce a lot of these words, you guys, but these are deposits, iron deposits from repeated bleeding. So if you've ever had an ovarian cyst which I've had all throughout my life they're very painful. I've been to the ER before with ovarian cysts and so I had these massive cysts filled with endometriosis on both of my ovaries. I also had endometriosis on my pelvic sidewalls, both utero-sacral ligaments, my uterus. So I had to add no inside, but the endometriosis was covering the outside of my uterus, Fallopian tube, appendix they had to take my appendix, sigmoid colon rectum and the mesentery.
Speaker 1:I don't know if that's the same as the cecum, but it's the connective tissue, I think, that holds the intestines in place. Endometriosis had literally invaded the muscle layers of my intestines and my appendix. My rectum was fused to my cervix with dense adhesions requiring a bowel resection. They had to cut a portion of my bowel out and then reconnect it. My uterus had multiple fibroids, so it had the adeno and the deep adenomyosis and it had the endometriosis adhesions on the outside, but it also had multiple fibroids. She said it was like bumpy on the top too. One fallopian tube was shortened and diseased with paratubal endometriosis. My appendix had endometriosis growing through its muscular wall. My rectum and sigmoid colon had endometriosis inside their muscle layer.
Speaker 1:And I think she also mentioned that there was a kink. Multiple organs were stuck together by fibrous adhesions, which makes a lot of sense, because I would like try to roll over at night and it would feel like my body, my insides, were tearing. That's because everything was stuck together because of my endometriosis. So and if you, oh my gosh, it's just overwhelming to like read it all back, because everywhere it was everywhere, but, praise God, none of those tumors or masses were malignant.
Speaker 1:Everything was clear for scary stuff, and so it's like, wow, that is what was going on that made me so exhausted Like I. I have been tired for a very long time and my moods go up and down and, um, my energy is just like I would always feel, like what you know, I'm such a loser, like I'm just being honest, like I'd get so frustrated because I didn't really, which you may think, oh, but you've done Abitable on the podcast, and like you guys know me on this front, and like that's just an absolute testimony to the, the incomprehensible power of God in me, of Christ in me, because I have not felt well for so long and so being able to do the things that I've been able to do are a testimony to God in me. I've been studying too, like just asking to learn and understand better, like what was going on because of this disease in my body, and so like an example is how chronic inflammation was affecting my brain. So I've learned that it just means endometriosis, and adenomyosis means that my body was constantly inflamed. The lesions secreted inflammatory molecules, cytokines that didn't just stay local, they entered my bloodstream and crossed into my brain. That neuroinflammation scrambled the balance of neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine and norepinephrine Norepinephrine, I can't say. The result was depression, low motivation, fatigue and a constant heaviness. That felt like living in a fog after surgery, with endometriosis excised and adenomyosis removed with my uterus, the inflammatory burden dropped because I started to feel better. Immediately, you guys, neuro inflammation began to calm, my neurotransmitters reset and suddenly and this is exactly what happened I could feel like overwhelming joy again. It's like a sickness induced, darkness lifted and my brain could finally see light.
Speaker 1:Then there's the hormone chaos that happens because of endometriosis. It thrives, I learned, on estrogen. So month after month, hormonal swings fueled more growth and more inflammation. This is what I was trying to describe, was happening to me for a long time, but it amplified when I took my IUD out, which I had had put in from a gyno who was trying to suggest, like, let's put your cycle to sleep and that'll help. It's very common for women without endometriosis to be diagnosed or, excuse me, to be treated with birth control, and so that's what I had tried and it had helped for a while. But then I was having stabbing pain, you know, breaking through anyway. So when I took out my IUD, it amplified, and that's what it's saying here, that my inflammation just grew more and more. So these surges also destabilize your brain chemistry and the chronic stress of that over-activated my HPA axis, which is my body's stress response system. So cortisol flooded my brain and suppressed the very regions that regulate mood and hope. By removing my uterus and the adenomyosis that lived inside it and excising the diseased tissue, my hormones are finding a steadier rhythm. There's no more destructive monthly cycle, no more unpredictable storms. The steadiness has calmed my stress response, lifted my mood and brought clarity of thought that I have not experienced in years. It's amazing.
Speaker 1:And then there's the gut factor. Endometriosis had infiltrated my rectum, sigmoid, colon and appendix. This wasn't just painful, it was disruptive to the gut-brain axis. About 90% of the body's serotonin is made in the gut. My diseased bowels were contributing to dysbiosis, unhealthy gut bacteria and inflammation, which leaked through to my bloodstream and brain. Post-surgery, with diseased bowel segments removed and my appendix taken out, my gut has been able to start healing. Inflammation is down. My microbiome can rebalance. Serotonin production in my gut is recovering. Serotonin production in my gut is recovering, which again means my mood, energy and clarity are recovering too. So, in short, my surgery reset my whole body.
Speaker 1:I just keep waking up like in the middle of the night. I'm in this like motorized chair that I'm borrowing from my dad. It's a recliner. It's amazing. It's like been so helpful in my recovery and just getting up and getting back down, which I'm doing with much more ease as each day passes, and I'm out for long walks. I walked all the way to my parents' house yesterday, but like I'll just sit up. I like you know, like I'm an 85-year-old woman, but I'll sit up in the middle of the night. I'll just like smile in the dark and I wake up and I'm not in pain. I wake up and I feel rested and I wake up and I feel like a brand new person. I feel like I have energy, like I could conquer the world, and I feel that way even though I'm still I mean, I still have.
Speaker 1:I had like eight holes in my body, in my, in my stomach, my abdomen eight incisions, um, or openings in my abdomen after the surgery, and so there's like real incisions and real, like I'm still bruised and still, you know I got to take it easy. Still, um, I'm only two, two and a half weeks past my surgery, but I'm just a totally different person, um, and I'm overwhelmed with gratitude. You know I was thinking about, like when I make a post like this on Facebook. You know, like I said, um, you know I was just giving credit. You know like this is not credit to me.
Speaker 1:I know that I'm a quitter. I know I wouldn't have endured like abidable or homeschooling or life or showing up in any way, like I know myself well enough to know that I just would have stayed in bed. So the only explanation is the Lord was literally supernaturally carrying me and any good that came out of my life in those years was not me, but Christ in me. Like someone who's not a believer maybe that's you and you're here just listening to the story Like you're, like no, you're strong, kate. Like you, that's you. Like you chose, and I appreciate, like I know, that you're trying to encourage me, um, and you know, like we like to tell each other that we're strong.
Speaker 1:And there is an element yes, like I've chosen, I had a choice, um, but even that, I would say, was a God empowerment, a Holy Spirit empowerment, to choose to keep showing up for my life and in spite of the fact that I was in pain because, again, like I know myself, and so I just was saying like how God has answered my cry for deliverance, not spiritually only, but also physically. He used doctors, one of the best in the world, right down the street, medicine and surgery to heal me. He made a way where there was no way and sprung new streams in the desert. My God still works miracles. You know, when I said Isaiah 43, 18 to 19,. Remember, not the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.
Speaker 1:I said at the end of this post here on my this is just my personal Facebook page I put a blog post. If you want to read the rest of this, this is up on biteablecom on the blog. But I just ended by saying, like, my God still works miracles and if he can do it in me, he can do it in you. He is everything you need for whatever you need. I have tried to live life without him so many times, but knowing what I know now, after four years of clinging to him, like my life depended on it, because it did, and through his word, I will never let go of him again. Today I remember, I give thanks and testify the Lord has healed me and I was thinking, like you know, I have a lot of people who I love, who don't love Jesus for whatever reason, and they might read a post like this and say, like how can you worship a God that let you, that gave you endometriosis, like you've suffered for 10 years, more than 10 years?
Speaker 1:Like, why are you worshiping a God who allows disease like that to happen in the world? And I understand that question. But I don't agree theologically with that question. I don't believe that God is the originator or creator of disease. I believe that sin is the cause of disease.
Speaker 1:And I'm not saying my specific sin led to endometriosis, though I am sinful. I'm saying that sin entered the world when Adam and Eve chose to completely turn their back on the God who had created paradise. Eden means paradise, a luxurious, extravagant paradise with everything that they ever needed. They turned their back on him. You know he wanted relationship with them. He walked with them, he knew them personally, intimately, and he made them in his image to do life together. And they didn't want that. They wanted to do life on their own terms. And the one thing you know, he gave them free will. And the one thing that they were not allowed God made everything. So God can say you can have this and you can't have that. And what they were not allowed to have, they took. And sin entered the world. Right, and that's the I mean.
Speaker 1:If you don't agree with that, and it's because maybe you don't have a biblical worldview of the creation of the world and how brokenness and you wouldn't say sin, how trouble or the reason. I don't know if you. How do you explain the way that humans treat each other? I don't know what you call it violence. What's the reason for it? What's the origination of it? Do you think that man is inherently good? Have you ever been around a toddler for more than 10 minutes? I don't know how you can think that. But sin entered the world and it's my belief, biblical belief, that part of that, a part of that, is disease, like endometriosis, so it's not something that God caused.
Speaker 1:Now I do believe that God, in his wisdom, allows things to cross our doorstep for multiple reasons, some which we may know on this earth and some which we may not. I think for me there's a million different reasons, not a million, I like to exaggerate, but there are plenty of reasons that I can see why God has allowed this in my life. The greatest two would be as an opportunity to suffer well for Him, for His glory, to tell other people that I don't serve God conditionally based on Him giving me everything that I want, whatever I want. Like if he had never healed me of this, if I had continued to feel this way, he still. The cross alone is reason and evidence and proof for me that he is worthy of all my worship and worthy of me living my life for Him and for His glory. And so I want to tell other people that I want to testify about His goodness and who he is and what he's done.
Speaker 1:Certainly, all throughout Scripture and in the Bible leading up to and culminating in the cross, seeing that we had a sin problem and immediately in the garden, putting a plan in place and a rescue mission in place through the seed of the woman who would crush the head of the serpent. Um, through the promise eventually fulfilled in Jesus, our Messiah, who died on the cross for our sins, to take away our sins, the sins of the whole world, and set us free. So, um, yeah, like for me, that's a huge reason why tough stuff, and I know so many believers. You know Christians get things wrong, but you know the media and social media also don't do a good job.
Speaker 1:I've been in the church for a long time and the way that I have seen Jesus-loving, christ-following, bible-believing Christians respond to hardship, trial, not just in their own lives, but in the ways that they love and serve each other through that, there's nothing like the body of Christ on the face of the earth. When the body of Christ operates the way that it's supposed to, when the church is as the bride of Christ, who we are called to be, there's nothing like it. And I have seen people do amazing things, whether they themselves were suffering or whether they were coming alongside others who were suffering, and there's a lot of beauty. Now, I'm not saying that non-believers don't do beautiful things and serve each other and be incredible Oftentimes sometimes maybe even better than Christians, because they are striving for goodness. That's their identity. If that's you, I love you.
Speaker 1:I know that you are trying really hard to be a good person because you feel like it's a really important thing to do. Where does that desire come from, I would ask you? But also, none of us can be fully good all the time. And what do we do with the things that we screw up and when we sin and when we blow it, like, what do we do with that? And also, what's the standard? How do you know if you're good enough? How do you know if you are going to cross the finish line? There's no race course, there's no finish line, there's nobody to tell you. That is good enough, and you could say, I guess maybe, that you just are going to set your own course and run your own race and be good enough according to your own standards and that's good enough for you. But what if you're wrong? You know what if you're wrong?
Speaker 1:That's what scares me for people that I love, who don't give Jesus a chance, because I mean, at least I know myself and I know that I can never be good enough, consistently enough, to meet a standard of a holy God which he allows to set. He is holy and he can't be around sin, and yet he chose to come down and be man and turn to the world and be the God-man, jesus Christ, and live a sinless, perfect life in our place, to do the things that we couldn't do and fulfill the laws that we could not fulfill, and then to die in our place. I mean, it's just incomprehensible, and so that's what I believe in terms of like how could a God, good, loving God, allow you to suffer like that? How could you worship a God that has allowed you to suffer like that? And I would say, well, suffering like this is the result of sin in the fall, and he came and sent his son to do something about it. He's not Buddha sitting up above it telling us to stop feeling and reach nirvana and, you know, remove ourselves from the world and from the pain of the world through our own meditation and efforts. He came down into it and he experienced it and he felt it and he was crucified for it and he overcame sin and death by dying on the cross and then resurrecting three days later.
Speaker 1:So God I would say my God is coming to fix the sin problem that we created and there are still effects of it while this earth remains and while we're here. But even in it, he does things like he did for me by providing me with this group and leading me in this direction and giving me this doctor and making an opening where there was none and providing the finances and giving this doctor the doctors I had too I had a second surgeon giving them the skill that they needed to be able to perform the surgery that I needed. I would say that all of that comes from the hand of God. And then he's also been very active and present in my recovery and giving me everything that I need to help me with my pain and recovery process, and is working even now. I would say my God is amazing because he's knitting my body back together after all these things were cut out of it and I was able to walk. At 5 am the day after my surgery, I was already up walking to the nurse's station. Like our bodies that he created are amazing.
Speaker 1:And so I would say that's not science, that's not medicine alone, that is God, through science and medicine. Like, I believe that he's the one who gives everyone the minds and the skills, um, to figure that kind of stuff out, cause science and medicine are amazing. But they're amazing because I believe God's behind all of that. Even if somebody, he uses people, even if they're not a believer. He gives them you know, that's common grace he gives. He gives gifts and um grace to people who don't even don't even believe in him, and he uses those people to do amazing things.
Speaker 1:And so that's what I would say that God didn't create my endometriosis. It's a result of the fall, but he absolutely actively did something about it, first in the person of Jesus and then second in all the ways that he has come alongside me and helped me through it. And he's just by my side and I love him and I will worship him. And and I also would say that, like I mentioned briefly in this I'll just wrap this up my um, what I've learned has taken some time and years, is that I am not going to just choose him if everything in my life goes the way I want it to, when I want it to. Like that's not, that's a guy that's fashioned in my own image because I don't even know. It's like I don't know what's best for me. And then everybody around me like the decisions that I make, how they impact the world around me and all the ripple effects of that. Like I am one person. I'm not sovereign, I'm not omnipotent. I am not, I'm not sovereign, I'm not omnipotent, I am not able to make those kinds of eternal decisions. And so I want to worship God for what I know to be true about him in the word, which never changes, because he never changes, and I want to build my house. That's why this song was so significant from foundation for me, because that line, rain came, winds blew, but my house was built on you.
Speaker 1:That's not always been my story. There've been a lot of seasons when my love hi Brody, my little pup, wants to be with me, where my love for God was conditional, based on him giving me what I wanted when I wanted. And so the reason I can worship God, even if I have endometriosis, is because endometriosis or pain or suffering cannot. Now that I know him I've been studying my Bible for four years Now that I know him that cannot even begin to taint who he is and what he's done. It doesn't matter. Like that is insignificant. Like I have enough reason to praise him for the rest of my life, like I said, just for the cross alone, just for the fact that he saw my sin problem and he made a plan and he left heaven and he came to earth and he lived a perfect, sinless life and he died in my place for my sins and then offered me the gift of eternal life by grace, through faith in Christ. That's enough to praise him. I don't care. It's like endometriosis sucks, pain sucks.
Speaker 1:I'm not minimizing suffering, because suffering is hard and my suffering may be nothing compared to your suffering. It's certainly nothing compared to some of the suffering that people are experiencing right now in the world. Suffering is really hard, but it's also just part of the package deal that we got when we chose to turn our back on him and do things our way. He gave us what we wanted and if it wasn't Adam and Eve, it would have been you and I, so we can't blame them, like my son likes to do. He plans on having a strongly worded conversation with Adam and Eve when he gets to heaven, but we're helping him understand that he would have made the same decision. So, anyway, I just wanted to come say hello.
Speaker 1:It's kind of took a different direction. I ended up probably talking more about I guess that was just what was on my heart. I thought you know there's probably people who are seeing me say this and thinking like she's just. You know, faith is the opiate of the masses. She's just, like you know, sucked into this cult of Christianity, like having suffered for 10 years and saying God is good. That is a lunatics argument. You know to turn around and not be mad at the God who, supposedly, if you believe in God, like where was he?
Speaker 1:That kind of question and somebody asking that might be asking that also from a pain point, where they wonder in their own life why God allowed certain things to happen and where he was when those things happened. And I've been there. I've been there, I've asked those questions and I've turned my back on him and I've walked away to go do my own thing. And those were the worst seasons of my life. I will never, ever again walk away from him.
Speaker 1:I can't now, because of what I know, because of what I've learned as I've studied his word about who he is and what he's done, I cannot. Where else would I go? Peter says this you know, when Jesus has given some hard teaching like following Jesus is hard, being a believer is hard. He had given some hard teaching. People had walked away from him. He looked at the rest of his disciples and he said are you going to leave me too? And Peter said where would we go? Lord, you have the words of life, and that's what I've learned. He has the words of life and that's what I've learned. He has the words of life. He is the resurrection and the life. He is the way, the truth and the life, and there is no way to the father but through him, and so I choose him. I choose him regardless of what I might face in this world, and that is what was on my heart, I guess, to share today, in addition to just giving you an update and thanking you for praying and letting you know I'm doing okay.
Speaker 1:I've had a few setbacks. I had a really bad rash that had to be treated with a steroid that was unbelievably painful, even for my shirt to touch it. I think I might have a either bladder and or kidney infection going on right now, which is being treated by antibiotics. I'm trying to wean off my medication. It's still a little bit hard. I'm actually right now, praise God, a couple hours past my normal time and I'm sitting here talking to you, so that's a miracle in and of itself and I'm out walking. I'm sleeping really great. I'm still on a very restricted diet, but God is sustaining me through that and providing through local friends and family, especially my amazing mom, who's been making all my meals for me since I'm on a restricted diet.
Speaker 1:Um, I just feel like really loved, really seen Um, and I'm bursting at the seams with creativity and things that I want to share. So thanks for letting me come on with, like an unfiltered, unedited I'm not sending this off to my buddy, ian, because he's on a break too right now for all the time that he helped edit, so I'll just kind of stick this one together with tape and glue and get it out there. Brody's really mad at me for ignoring him, and so he says it's time to be done, um, with this episode, and so I just wanted to come on, say hello, give you an update, let you know that I will be back with my best friend. Jason's going to be joining me on the podcast, our first episode of the, our first episode of our ask us anything series. The questions have now closed. We've got tons of questions from you guys, from our listeners, um, that we are going to be answering. So that should launch on Monday, september 15th, if all goes well.
Speaker 1:Ian's coming over with his wife, kelsey, this weekend to hang with us and he's going to help set up the two microphones for us, and I cannot wait to bring him on the podcast because he's the wisest person I know. He is the reason that I have been able to remain so steadfast in the Lord. He just encourages me always to keep going. When he opens his mouth, like I'm either dying laughing which has been a problem during surgery, because it hurts to laugh, um, not during surgery, during surgery, recovery, um or he just has some incredible nugget of wisdom. He sees situations really well and I'm very excited to bring him on because I think he's the better half, um, and you're going to benefit so much from hearing from him, so we'll be back soon. I miss you guys. Hope this was just a fun little update and thanks for listening. We'll see you next time. Until then, let's abide.
