"I didn't want some quiet quirky sensitive girl" those were the words my husband told me a couple of weeks ago. My response to him as simple. "That's who I was from the beginning until the world changed me. Until I compromised to make everybody else happy. And, I'm sorry I can't be who God didn't design".
His words hurt me so much that I internalized them. He had poked fun of me in small ways that felt like little daggers all day. I finally said "Stop picking on me. It hurts my feelings". Usually I'd laugh along, let it go on, and just be the funny, sassy, soul that he married & it would appear that all is well. Appearances are deceiving. Wounds that the world inflict run deep, fester, and swell. Normally, I would put the day in the nothing box. Instead, I felt prompted to write this blog.
I call it my nothing box. It is a small box of memories of worldly wounds that I keep in my head. I don't open the box and leave it as a nothing box. Filed in the box is every playground taunt, every rejection, feelings of inadequacy and worthlessness, abandonment, and hurt that was left rather than spoken about.
In this series on transparency I've shared part of my life from the nothing box. What has left me speechless, vulnerable, and without words. The last of this series is how I became one in a million and yet felt unworthy.
One in a million sounds like being something awesome, right? It is something that makes you special or unique. It's a landmark for the world to ogle at your splendor, aptitude, demise, or defeat.
I had a bone graph on my left arm as a kid. The surgeon and my parents had feared what was making my left humerus bone not grow at the same pace as my right was cancer.
The surgery took longer than anticipated. The surgeon discovered that what was taking up bone mass was not cancer but an inflated blood vessel that was taking over bone mass. My humerus bone was egg shell thin. He took bone chips from my right hip and put them in the humerus. When he found out that my arm had never been broke only a sprain once when I was in kindergarten. My surgeon said that the type of ballooning of the blood vessel happens to one in a million patients and that I was the first he had seen and probably the last of his career. My surgeon told me "God has been watching out for you, Sherry, you are one in a million kid".
I wore the title "one in a million" with pride while I was in the hospital. My arm was fragile and there were all sorts of contraptions to keep it in place to heal. It was three months before I started physical therapy to learn how to walk again on my own. It took six months before I could be out of the contraptions and to start limited physical therapy. Even then I wasn't allowed to raise my left arm. That would take a few more months of physical therapy.
I stayed in the hospital in Iowa City for so long that my dad had to go back to work. My mom stayed with me, advocated & encouraged me. My dad brought my homework to me on weekends. Finally the day came when I was able to go home. The medical team packed me with a new contraption for the car ride and foam egg crates all around me so that I wouldn't move.
It felt unreal being away from my friends and school for the most of the school year. I wasn't allowed to go back to school because even the smallest nudge on my left arm could undo the fragile surgery & cause a break. I did my homework from home, stayed on the couch, and couldn't walk anywhere not even to the bathroom without someone there. My mom or dad would write my answers on my homework because I wasn't able to write with the contraptions for my left arm that I wore. At night they wrapped me up in more contraptions and the foam egg crates so that I wouldn't move my left arm in my sleep.
I knew I was one in a million. I had medical proof of it. I felt sheltered, shut down, and really alone. I couldn't write or draw. Writing and drawing was how I let out my emotions even as a kid and it was taken. My mom said she would write for me in my journal. My journal was mine. It was a place for my thoughts and emotions to flow without anyone seeing them. She bought a new journal for me and wrote small things for me but I couldn't really tell her everything that I wanted to write. My mom loves me but she isn't artsy and she couldn't draw out what I was feeling. I was silenced until I could finally be free of contraptions and have limited use of my arm which took months.
People would ask what happened to me. It made me the center of attention for my scar not for who I was. I was a quiet kid and it forced me to talk, answer questions, and have kids and adults doubt my story was true. I stopped wearing tank tops & sundresses as a kid so no one would see the scar. No one would see that I was different. I didn't want to be different from everyone else. I didn't wear a tank top until I was in my thirties.
Those thoughts of a fifth grade girl melted me into being a guarded for most of my life to try to keep me from being judged. Sure I had my one in a million scar on my left arm but there were internal scars that were deeper. It was easier to be bold, sassy, and outgoing than that quiet, quirky girl that loved words, writing, and art. The world loves Sherry that is bold and sassy. The quiet, quirky, insightful, writer and artist they don't.
I want to be so much like everybody else. I want people to look at me and see normal. Even if I have it documented in writing that I'm "one in a million" somehow that it isn't good enough. The world requires more from me. The world wants to see the happy, shiny person that has it all together. The world and memories jaded me. They made me feel less than. I wasn't; pretty enough, smart enough, and that no one liked me for who I was. I changed that when I went to college. I became outgoing, sassy, and life of the party. I moved to KC and got married and had kids rather than traveling, teaching, and being an artist. I compromised at age 18 to fit in. I was always trying to please someone else. I didn't value myself or know my own worth.
It took a cancer diagnosis to realize what had happened. How lost to the world I had become. That my own concepts of who God is were far from the truth. I'm that one on a million that God continued to pursue my whole life . The one that laid captive to the what the world said she should be. That one in a million that he created with his own unique characteristics that would shine to others and radiate them to Him if she would silence herself and listen.
We all have nothing boxes in our brains. I think it is choosing to let them lay dormant or allowing ourselves the grace to be vulnerable and share. I'm taking grace today. Learning to lose the issues from the nothing box that held me captive. Giving myself grace knowing my stories aren't for everybody. That by me sharing that another one in a million that lays captive might begin the journey of freeing them self. If you are that one in the million know you are loved without judgment. You are given grace to be you. You can rise and break your nothing box into bits with the hopes that our Heavenly Father has created you for more. Be you...be that one in a million.
Beyond being labeled "one in a million" I had the joy of never having to do ; pull ups in gym. Even as a 49 year old my left arm isn't as strong as the right. I can strain it easily and have to ice or heat pack it. It grew but never caught up to my right humerus. My left arm is shorter than my right arm and always will be. That makes me a worldly "one in a million". Knowing that I am a beloved daughter of the Lord makes me the one in a million that God created and restored.
Peace be with you- Sherry
UPDATES:
- I have to have a mammogram and then will be consulting with my oncologist about my latest scan. If I'm honest I'm petrified that they will tell me something is wrong. I'd love prayers over calm in the next couple of weeks.
- I set up a "go fund me" for my mission trip to South Dakota. After what happened in December with the tires I feel like I need to take an emergency fund with me of $500 and then another $250 for gas, groceries, and living expenses for July & August. Both my son and daughter with be with me. Please pray that this ask is not too great and will get funded.
- I feel an alignment with the Lord this year that is so direct to my heart. I'm sure that I'm meant to be writing more than I have. This is the last of the transparency series. I am looking forward to the next series called "Rise & Roar".
- Prayers over my art studio here in Pleasant Hill and my ability to be God's light, grace, and hope through creativity are appreciated. This past week I was blessed by five people that popped in unexpectedly that just needed a place to hangout, someone to confide in, and grace from the world.
- We are in need of an new air conditioner unit for the house. Pray that we can source a used one at little to no cost. As most of you know I need air conditioning because after radiation my skin prickles and blisters from the heat. A new unit for the house would be more affordable than the window units we are using and more effective. We tried to get a loan to make payments on a new a/c unit but were denied.
