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Transcript

Hope on the Healing Road: My Honest Journey Through Cancer · Stuck No More Voices

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So part three of the cancer journey.
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: This is Teresa.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: If you see me on camera, it's a ruffled up Teresa, coming to you bare just as I am.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Someone on one of my groups asked me how I was.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: I can only think of my children, anna and William, or known as Billy and Jesus.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: You know it's humbling this time of recovering from two surgeries the double mastectomy.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: I had problems.
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: I had a huge hematoma that split wide open and a right side that wasn't healing.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: So after less than a month I was back on the surgery table and going through another surgery of removing the hematoma and closing up the right side.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: It's been the most painful double mastectomy.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: To the second surgery.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: It's humbling because you have to ask for help.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: It's humbling to be tended to, to feel loved, not forced, but poured out with all the emotion and care your soul can bear.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: It's usually a morning where I rise early in my kid's house when I was healing and I'm basically moving slow, especially after that first one, like a fragile song finding its first notes again.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I made my way downstairs and I carefully, prayerfully, make a cup of hot coffee.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Thank you God.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: For what are those called?
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: I can't think right now.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: But you know, coffee and Jesus.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: It's that simple comfort that anchors me during this time and when my body, the world that I'm living in, feel unrecognized, never been through something like this, so debilitating.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: So a place where you have to deal with pain from the headaches, the wounds where body parts once were, had been fierce.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: They've been fierce, if I can just be honest, and sometimes I wonder if it wasn't just the pain.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: Maybe it was the, at times, coffee withdrawal.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: But as the months gone by since April 15th, my first surgery, may 20th, my second surgery oh gee, I just where can I hide amidst the retching pain that takes your breath?
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: And the only place I've been able to do that is I go to the quiet, to the slow drip of pain, to the breath by breath surrender.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: I do go to Jesus and often copies right with me.
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: So this time I'm not alone in dealing with this.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: I think the greatest restoration has been with my kids.
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: So I went through that second surgery and the surgeon he looked me in the eye, paused longer than usual and said words I won't soon forget.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: I've never seen a case like this and he kind of made a joke.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: You're the first in this case?
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: What was he talking about?
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: A major hematoma after a double mastectomy that split wide open a right side that wouldn't heal.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: I've never seen a case like this, he said.
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: That sentence could shatter hope, but somehow it steadied me, because I'm not a case, I'm a canvas, one God is still painting on, obviously.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: Oh, yet another surgery that I experienced after the deep valley of a double mastectomy More pain, more waiting, more stretching of faith.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: I could ask why God, why me?
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: Because, well, you know I could ask that.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: But listen, the fire has not consumed me, it has refined me.
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: This is not just my story.
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: No, I think it's a unique glory tale being written by the hands of the great physician.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: I don't want terrible second surgery cloud the fact that cancer is gone.
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: That second surgery was so painful at times I forgot.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: Wait a minute, I don't have cancer anymore.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Second surgery had a little bit Trying.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Second surgery a little bit Trying.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: But you know what?
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Each suture, each scar is a stitch in the tapestry of God's faithfulness.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: And listen, I'm not going to shrink back, I'm going to rest, I'm going to take my time, but I'm not going to shrink back.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: I will not curse the process.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: I will not curse the process.
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: I will praise through it, walk through it, believe through it.
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: He's not just a God of healing, my friend, he is the God of holy redemption.
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: He wastes nothing, not even this.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: So, to walk through the valley of pain, I'm coming up for breath, believing for more glory moments.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: So for now, what I've been experiencing is his presence.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: I've been experiencing the love of my two children, restoration Children who used to, in past years, did not want to be around me, not want to be around me.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: It's another story Tragic marriage, but now they see me.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: So, for now, the love of my children and a few friends who just get me, who are still believing for me.
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: A lot of friends in that way, but the ones that stay at your table when it's a mess.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: But it's yet another story for God's glory.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Psalm 71, verse 14, says so.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: I live in the hope of seeing your glory and I will praise you yet more and more.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: So this may not always be for the pain, you know.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: I mean I'm asking God where I should talk, whether this video will be released.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: You're obviously hearing me and God's just telling me to rest, to don't hide what God is doing.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Show up if your story still stings.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: This is the glory in the becoming.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: So I may turn my camera on a few times, but it's more just to reveal that you can have hope and help.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: You don't have to suck it up, and that's a good thing.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: I've learned because I've been good, I'm always did that.
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: But I'm really realizing that, you know, strength isn't still stoic, stoicism, stoicism no, today I'm unraveling, as I walk day to day, just a fresh revelation from these post post.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: I moved and I'm living with my kids.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: I know that God, thank God that God, he crafted my nervous system.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: He knit every fiber, not for burnout but balance.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: I'm learning that all over again.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: Not to suppress but to express Feeling is healing and, yes, perseverance.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: You know it's still the muscle of my faith.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm realizing as I go through this healing process and maybe you can relate to this.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: Maybe it's not cancer for you, but it's a time where there's just resistance, there's just struggle, there's dreams lost, there's marriages lost, there's kids lost, there's finances lost, perseverance of I don't know.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: It isn't pretending Perseverance in your situation, isn't shoving down sorrow and pain like a stone in your belly.
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: No, it's the sacred act of trusting my friend, trust that your father can handle your full emotional swirl.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Like tears.
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: He bottles them up.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: Groans.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: He interprets them Anger, he bites it into the refining fire.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Shame.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: He reminds you who you really are.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: So lay it down, friend.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: I'm just saying lay it down because you know what we go through and as you lay it all down, you're not laying it down in defeat, okay, you're laying it down in a divine release.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: I know probably the hardest thing for me personally is I was in the midst of my business with the StechnoMore Academy, helping faith-filled voices find their voice, share their voice and market their voice, basically helping them create a podcast from the overflow of their relationship with God.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: I was in the fifth out of six sessions and I went through the double mastectomy and I had a great friend, alana, who led the sixth session.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: So I had help from a friend.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: But basically I was so excited about season two but a boulder crashed through the window of my open dreams and that boulder was cancer.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: But I still had to walk through the window.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: I felt like God said you still got to walk through the window and as I walked through the window the shards of the glass cut me, but I still walked the barrenness of once, a bright window crashing all around me, could I say, maybe in another podcast I'll see the reality of it.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: But the work I once held like a plow, the Stuck no More Academy, the mic behind the radio waves were at a point very quiet.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: We're at a point very quiet, like this podcast, being a new one is after two months of just being quiet.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: The fig tree barren, the vines empty of grapes, the oil of effort dried in the press, no sheep, no cattle, just a quiet field and open hands.
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: That comes from thinking about the verse Habakkuk 3, 17 through 18, though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I'll be joyful in God, my Savior.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Maybe you can relate to that.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: You've got some barren areas.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: You've got some struggles.
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: You wonder where to go.
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: I've discovered something that's louder than my hustle.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: Hustle defeats creativity, I've talked about that.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: But listen, something that's louder than your hustle is the unique voice that God gave you.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Your voice is the expression of your values, your identity, your experiences that can impact thousands.
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: It's that unique expression that your voice and when I say voice, it could be your song, it could be your business, it could be your being a mom, being a dad.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: It's a unique expression of all the values and the identity one identity and just the experiences you have that impact thousands.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: Your story could be the answer to someone else.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: So I continue.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: So my voice now?
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: Not the polished one, definitely not.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: I got a frog in my throat Not the platform-ready one.
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: My voice with my hair today would not make a stage I wouldn't want it to be that way but the stage of a podcast being real.
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: And the voice that comes from the breaking and the bleeding For me, the groan from the recovery table, the whisper in the night when pain mocks sleep, that voice, it still builds.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: It still carries all grapes and figs from a different garden.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Provision didn't ride in on a sally or schedule Mm.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: That's a tough one.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: I love to work, but provision did come in mercy of friends, my children starting up a GoFundMe.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: That was so humbling.
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: But people came and gave.
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: Some were anonymous, some with names.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: These are people I'd seen on my Facebook page or Instagram for years and they showed up.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: So provision provision is not riding on a salary or my schedule at the radio station or my stuck no more business.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: Wings of humility, carried by those who love me, my children, friends holding space, god showing up through the hands of others when mine could no longer hold and still come on, I will rejoice.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: My voice is still the tool, my song is still valid, even if sung from the shadow of surgery, scars, surgery scars.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: Delighting in him.
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: That's my ceiling now.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Not numbers, not noise, not likes, not shares, just nearness to God, realizing that I can still keep speaking, not as one who has arrived, but as one who's anchored.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: I want my voice to carry legacy, I want my voice to help you break ground where you can plant again, to have hope again.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: My voice still partners with the vine dresser, even in the quiet, in a still sound.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: So coming to you kind of ruffled if you see the video, but still rising with hope.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: This is the challenging thing and you see if this might be for you.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: The most challenging thing is to be still and rest, put aside some dreams and just sit in the quiet.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: As this one man said, he had to learn to go to the porch and sit in silence and let the Holy Spirit bring the winds of revelation, bring the wings of hope and remind you that you have a voice.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: Whatever you're going through, it doesn't stop your voice.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: So as I stop and rest, I'm just asking God how can I worship you more, how can I feel the nearness of you?
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Because the nearness of you is everything.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: The only revelation that's real, that can change and transform lives, comes from you.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: But I also know that, as it says in Scripture, they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb in the word of their testimony.
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: So the blood of the Lamb is a finished work on the cross and from that finished work you can embrace it and then declare your story for his glory.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: As this is part three of my cancer story, I said it in the last one.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: It's not about me, but it's like how can I speak and reveal the glory of god even in the midst of double mastectomy, even in the midst of a second surgery, even in the midst of pain and havingomy, even in the midst of a second surgery, even in the midst of pain and having to live in my kid's house, which is fine because of this restoration it's a little stuffed right now, a little packed to the heels.
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: We just realized we need a storage room for Teresa's stuff.
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: And you know it's funny because I used to like, I like to have everything perfect and I'm not a neat freak, but this is a stretch for me.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: But listen, listen, even in the stretch, glory moments show up.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: Can I share one Like?
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: I pick my son up from work at 2 pm and I get there early and he says Mom, you don't have to get here that early.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: But it reminded me of days past when I was so consumed with trying to make money I'd be late to pick my kids up from school and it so hurt them.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: I remember at one time I just got involved, striving and in the hustle, learning, marketing and doing videos.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, way back then when they were little and I would be late.
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: I remember this one time they were the last ones and the hurt on their face and I can't live in regret.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: But this is where God's restoration process it's just a small thing but it's so real to me is I get early to pick my son up.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: He goes Mom, you don't have to come this early, it's okay, I'd love to wait for you, son, it's too far for him to walk, it's hot, so it's nice to pick him up from work.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: I wish I could get up early and take him to work.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: I haven't quite got to that effort.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: And then, and then, to see your daughter working, working two jobs, so efficient, I mean, I was so in awe of her.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: So just coming raw and real, saying God is God is good guys, even if you're lonely, press in.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: You may just come face to face with a living God that loves you so much.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: I understand that life can throw some curveballs, but you know what?
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: God's enabled you to hit some home runs.
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: The curveballs aren't going to keep you down.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: No, the curveballs are going to be you learning to abide, learning to be strong, yeah, and then hitting those home runs.
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: The rolling waves may be coming at you, the tidal waves of struggles and the yuck of the mess, but you know what I can also hear you say in the middle of the waves, like speaking to those waves, speaking to those troubles.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: Just, I can hear you say I trust you, god, I trust you.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: And do you know what the key is?
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: It's your childlike faith, how you will sit with God and embrace his presence, even amidst the waves of emotions that want to take you down and drown you in hopelessness and despair, listen, it's okay to be real.
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: God gives us those emotions to release the pressure on our soul.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: I'm learning this the sadness, the anger, the disappointments, the feelings of lost dreams.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: You know, I used to write this thing called uh, listen to the vine dresser, and it was just words that I heard in the midst of pain, and it was oftentimes it was like listen to the vine dresser.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: They're all old, but the new ones are still in my journal, not really ready to release them.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: But that's one hope that I've had is that the vine dresser's voice is still very, very loud and clear.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: And another thing that's helped me is those people who've stayed at the table.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: What I mean, you know.
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: When you go through something like this, you can feel real isolated and then you feel like, oh gosh, I'm just all alone.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: I wrote something because I had one friend at least two friends that have just stayed in my face meaning, encouraging me.
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: I'm going to end this podcast with a word I wrote about a friend, a dear friend, who just stayed.
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: It's called she Sat at the Table of my Heart.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: A friend, this is how it goes.
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: A friend, she stayed.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: She didn't leave the table of my heart.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: She kept her word.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Even when the road got messy, she stayed.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: She reached through the fog of my mind, wiped off the dust of the bolts of doubt and swat down the flies of fears.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: She spoke life where lies had tried to linger.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: She championed my dreams like they were her own.
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: She dressed me in boldness, wrapped me in grace, reminded me of who I was in God.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: She stayed.
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: She made space for my process.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: She made me laugh till I cried.
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: She stayed at the table of my heart.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: She became the sister I never had.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: She gave me rooms to grow, metal, tools to trust myself, to fail to rise to speak.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: A steady presence, a defender, a soul-deep friend, a soul-deep friend, the one who remained loyal and never left.
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: She stayed.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: I guess, friends, jesus groups like no More Dry Ground.
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: You can survive with a story.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: That story can give God glory.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: My, really, you know when I think about it.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: My cancer it could have been a lot worse.
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: So I know people have it a lot worse.
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: My second surgery just happened to happen, but I survived it.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: I learned to tend to my own wounds.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Oh, that was a strip.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: But now I sit here with hope, with hope for you.
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: I hope that you hear my heart.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: I'm just an example.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: Your situation may be a lot worse.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Even though this apartment's stacked full and maybe not in order.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: I feel peace here.
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: I've had restoration happen.
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: I want that for you.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: I'm praying that for you.
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: Can you hear it in my heart?
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Don't give up.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Don't give up.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: Maybe this preparation is preparing you for something in the future.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: Your story could be someone else's answer to prayer.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: I don't know how to say this, and don't take't take this as like oh, teresa's got a big ego, she thinks she's going to do something.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: But there's a part of me that I've heard God say will you please rest and get well, because I want you to handle well what I have for you in the future.
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: If you don't rest, then what I give you will crash.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: Possibly, if you don't rest and heal your soul, your mind, your body, your spirituality, your relationship with God, if you don't totally rest in that deep place in the garden, down the rose, deep into the vineyard of me, god says I don't think you'll be able to handle well what I have for you.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: So that may be for you Go deep in the vineyard.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: I have a picture of going deeper and deeper into the vineyard and then coming out and there's like a little clearing place and there's a picnic table and at the picnic table it says Jesus, with two cups of coffee, he beckons you to come to the table of his grace.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: You sit down and he pushes the coffee near you and he says let's talk, let's talk.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: So that's my encouragement for you Go deep, have a talk with Jesus, have a cuppa with Jesus and find peace and hope and his story that's living in you for someone else.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, it's so great to be back on the Second no More Academy, second no More Podcast.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: I'm not at the Second no More Academy yet that's my business but it's such a joy to be able to look into the camera messy-haired and all.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: You may not see it on the podcast, obviously but just to look into the camera and say there's hope for you, there is hope for you.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: I pray my story becomes part of your glory.
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: Please share the episode.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: It helps, it just helps, and thanks for hanging out with me.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: I'll talk to you in the next episode of the Stuck no More podcast.