Psalm 139:13-16 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful,  I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you     when I was made in the secret place,     when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.  Your eyes saw my unformed body;  all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.

1Corinthians 12: 14;18;23-26 :-“So the body is not made up of just one part. It has many parts… God has placed each part in the body just as he wanted it to be…he parts that we think are less important we treat with special honor. The private parts aren’t shown. But they are treated with special care. ²⁴ The parts that can be shown don’t need special care. But God has put together all the parts of the body. And he has given more honor to the parts that didn’t have any. ²⁵ In that way, the parts of the body will not take sides. All of them will take care of one another. ²⁶ If one part suffers, every part suffers with it. If one part is honored, every part shares in its joy.

Discovering that you have cancer is a life-changing decision. It forces you to examine your life, your decisions and your choices. It is a clarifying moment where you realise that you have two lives: the one prior to and the existing one. You either learn to forgive yourself and let go of the anger inside of you or you retain it and make the situation worse. Uncovering cancer requires making effective decisions in a short space of time. In this post I will discuss two of those decisions.

In discovering that I had breast cancer I was immediately faced with two life-changing decisions. These decisions were to remove my right infected breast and to reduce the left to reduce the major pains of inequity. Having these decisions to make was not easy as I was very attached to my breasts. Like all little girls having breasts was a signal of womanhood and puberty. I began growing breasts from eight or nine years old and due to their size they became an integral part of who I was. As a teenager, in high school I was teased by boys because of their size. I even had classmates who would greet me and my breasts with 3 good mornings. Therefore, from very early I had to get comfortable with my body, what I looked like, in essence, being me and my breasts were an integral part of my identity. When I became a wife and a mother of three breastfeeding children, this added another layer of attachment to my breasts.

So can you imagine hearing firstly that I had breast cancer? I felt betrayed by my own body. A hymn that my father would quote came to mine: “this arm of flesh will fail you, you dare not trust your own”. While trying to reconcile this in my head, further tests revealed more bad news- that removal of my right breast was not an option but a necessity for survival!! Given the nature of the disease I realised that I had no choice but to make a fast decision to part with my personal treasures. Therefore, I did the only thing I knew how to. I had a conversation with my right breast in particular and told it goodbye. After all it was like losing a friend that you would never see again. I was in grief but stoic. I told my breasts “thank you for journeying with me all these years and for feeding my children” .I gave it one last bath before heading for the hospital for surgery.

Today 4 years later, I look at the deep scars that remain and remember with love all the memories my breasts and I had. I am able to thank God for life as I am still me despite losing such an essential part of my early identity. However on reflection, my identity is still intact as my breasts are not me. I am made of body, spirit and soul. This body is important but temporary in preparation for the eternal one.

Therefore today I salute and celebrate the heroes and heroines who have fought and are fighting sicknesses, communicable and non-communicable diseases every day and faced with grief and loss. May you know how special and loved you are as you face this temporary pain. Remember that you are more than what others see and know that you are body, spirit and soul made in the image of God.

Prayer: Father we thank you for all our heroes and heroines who are fighting or have fought sicknesses, communicable and noncommunicable diseases every day and are now facing grief and loss. We thank you that you are our Healer, Deliverer and Saviour. Thank you that you made our bodies, spirits and souls in your image and that in you we live and move and have our beings. In Jesus’ name Amen.