I was reviewing the weekly planner I have on our kitchen counter this morning and was struck by the fact that there is one event listed for tomorrow that is completely out of the ordinary: Biopsy 3 pm.

Tomorrow I am having a core needle biopsy done on a lump I found in my right breast. I discovered what felt to me like a squished ping pong ball located in between my breast and arm pit while laying in bed the first Saturday in June. More accurately, I should say the lump in question is actually hiding behind what I felt.

I spent about four days, compulsively feeling the lump to see if it was changing, praying that it would go away and googling the possible diagnoses. As a woman in her late 30s who’s mother’s sister is a breast cancer survivor, who carries a little more weight than she should and has on occasion partaken of more than the recommended amount of alcohol, I didn’t particularly like how my risk factors added up. When I finally decided to have it checked out, after advocating for myself and my desire to not wait a week for an appointment with my PCM, I was seen swiftly. The doctor did his exam and then told me the last time he’d seen a lump this big it was in fact late stage cancer. Not exactly what any patient wants to hear. I was quickly referred for a mammogram. As I waited for the next appointment, I realized that the Great Physician wasn’t going to take this from me, that this, whatever it was, was something He had somehow planned for His glory.

Following the initial read of the mammogram, I was imediately whisked away still wearing the “gown” (I use the term loosly….it is was little more than a transparent paper vest without closures) and cluthcing my shirt and bra to my chest in an attempt to retain my modesty to the ultrasound room through some secret passages hidden in the radiology department. That was a pretty scary moment, as was the one when the head radiologist came in to look at the black and white images of my breast tissue on the computer monitor while he and the tech pointed at “questionable areas” that “come and go”. When the arm I had been holding over my head for what felt like an eternity was finally going numb, he gave me his interpretation…That I had a couple of cysts and what appeared to be a fibro-adenoma hiding behind one of them, and I should come back in three months to see if anything changed. Honestly, this was a huge relief to me at first, because there are quite a few things that a lump in that area could be caused by that are even scarier than breast cancer.

Then, I began to question his dismissal of the finding behind the cyst. Who wants to hear that something is “probably” anything?

When my PCM followed up with me a few days later, he recommended that I be referred to a breast surgeon despite the radiologist’s lack of concern for what he’d seen and I consented. I became a patient of Breast Care Specialists in Shreveport, LA in mid-July with a rushed appointment and ultra-sound that seemed to confirm the diagnosis of a fibro-adenoma. I can’t say I was overly relieved to be told again to come back in three months to see if it had changed. I did however give up caffeine in my coffee and (almost entirely) in chocolate. I began taking the recommended evening primrose, vitamin E and advil to reduce swelling of the tissue around the cysts. It felt good to be doing something, even if I couldn’t notice any change in what I was feeling. I was checking a little less compulsively than before, but still more than most average women explore their breast tissue. I abstained from searching on the internet about my condition and even started to share this part of my life with some women I knew would be faithful to pray for me.

I am not always the most patient person and prefer to be doing something rather than just waiting. So for me, the typical protocol for a BIRADS-3 classification to check questionable areas with mammogram or ultrasound every three months for up to two years, seems like torture. I prayed more often that God would reveal His glory to me in this situation, rather than just cure me. I asked Him to carry me through whatever I was unable to bear. It was in these prayers that my heart became less burdened and my stresses were relieved. He was faithful to guard my heart and mind between apointments as I could only wait.

Throughout this process, I have felt the urge to write about what I was going through, but kept hearing God tell me, “Not yet.” It wasn’t until last week that I truly felt I had something to say.

On Monday I went for my three month follow up with the breast specialist. In the two and a half hour ride up to her office, I spoke with my Aunt and prayed fervently for guidance from God, for Him to give me peace with the situation, to lead me to push the doctor with the right questions, to make it apparent if simply waiting was what he wanted me to do. She did a quick ultrasound and verified that the questionable lump had indeed not grown, which she took as a good sign. I agreed, no growth certainly indicates that what I have is not cancerous. She was “comfortable waiting another 6 months to see if it would change.” However, I after having just endured Breast Cancer Awareness month, couldn’t shake the fact that I wasn’t comfortable waiting 6 more months. So I asked, “What if I’m not comfortable with waiting?” She said then we biopsy. She validated my concerns by admitting that she had been wrong before and confirming that the only way to be certain was to look at tissue under a microscope. I simply don’t want to waste even a second of the next six months wondering or even praying about this. Though I am confident God would have continued to carry me through the waiting, I believe He provided me a way out of this trial.

I am certain biopsy is the right decision and that God guided me to it by prompting me to ask questions. I have very little additional information than I had before I walked in to her office last week, but I have peace. I could still have a very slow growing tumor or pre-cancerous cells lurking under my skin, or it could in fact be perfectly harmless fibrous tissue that will likely dissipate after menopause. I still have questions that will only be answered at my follow up appointment next week, but I know my God is with me and nothing can stand against His promises.

The moment I knew I had something to write about came on Tuesday when our prayer coordinator for PWOC led an exercise where we were asked to write our greatest burden on a 3×5 card and place it on the altar. She urged us just as David does in Psalm 55:22 to “Cast your burden on the Lord, and He shall sustain you; He shall never permit the righteous to be moved.” You might think this very real, very present threat to my body, my health, perhaps my life would have been the burden I needed to let go of, but in those quiet moments of contemplation I was struck by the fact that I had already laid this one at the cross, I no longer wrestle with it. Even as relief washed over me in my peace with this, I became buried under the weight of the realization that I am still bearing the entire brunt of other burdens. Ones that are less dramatic, less significant, less potentially life-changing. I was at once encouraged that I am fully willing to cast my cares for my very life upon my Lord and yet shamed that I still allow myself to be encumbered by a load of other cares of this world that have no eternal significance.

God is guarding my heart and my mind in this situation that I (and so many others on my behalf) have prayed about. In this I am experiencing His peace that surpasses all understanding for what is certainly one of the scariest things I have faced in my life, but I won’t be satisfied until I am able to lay all my worries confidently at the feet of Jesus.

Do you have a heavy load to cast upon the Lord? Are you carrying so many small worries that their combined weight is holding you down? Is there one burden you keep taking back from Jesus and attempting to conquer on your own? I urge you pass it off, give it up, lay it down and enlist the help of a few faithful friends to pull you out from under it! Just wait and see how He will sustain you with His peace!