Tag: grace

I will praise you because I have been fearfully and wonderfully made

~ Lisa M. Boyd ~ 3 Comments

It’s okay to not always be okay. It doesn’t mean I’m not grateful it means I’m struggling. It doesn’t mean I don’t pray because I do. It just means I’m not okay for today. Maybe tomorrow I don’t know we’re not there yet.

As I sit here waiting to leave for my appointment praying to get my drain tubes out as I have hives all over my torso from the Tagaderm dressing, and one drain clogged that caused a Seroma that will have to be drained I also reflect.

I reflect on this almost 49 year old woman who was crying uncontrollably while her husband gently undressed her to ease her discomfort last night, and helped her into bed. A woman who is trying to find, and grasp the new her
. She is shy for her husband to look at her. The woman who has had a loss, the loss of a body part. A woman who is desperately trying to love herself all over again. You can all say it’s better this way. I know all of this. My body rejected my implants, yet it doesn’t make it any easier to accept.
I can remember people writing in my 7th grade annual to not be jealous of the walls. Trust me I finally came of age, and was happy with what God gave me. This though is different from just being flat chested. I have an incision from one side on my chest to the other, and just my skin. Nothing that resembles breasts at all. I also know as I write this I am just one of millions of woman just like me, but this is my personal journey.

I am doing my best, and my best is all I can do at this moment. I can say this, I thank God for gifting me the man he did. He gently loves me, and lets me go through this process(which sucks). I thank God for being cancer free, and now I pray that God will help me as He has with everything else in my life get through this next new phase in life. I am also grateful for the plastic surgeon who expressed such remorse, and empathy for my situation. It is not his fault my body rejected my implants 2 times. My body is just made different. I am breast cancer warrior! The cancer is gone, and so our my breasts. The older I get, the more I am realizing how intricately made I am…
Psalm 139:15-16
“for it was You who created my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I will praise You because I have been fearfully and wonderfully made”.

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Not much for words today

~ Lisa M. Boyd ~ 4 Comments

I am unable to post any pictures do to storage issues that I don’t have time to take care of at the moment. Hopefully soon enough though…

I got Covid last month when I had posted about my Breast Implant Illness, and my surgery to remove my implants was postponed. It is tomorrow, and I am so anxious. I am trying to know there’s a place where fear has to face the God I know. This is that place. Tomorrow at 2:00 is this place. As I write this tears are welling up in my eyes, I am just tired in every aspect of life. Yet I am blessed, and this I know.

My breast cancer journey has been so long, and this body is very tired. I know it is the absolute right thing to do, yet I am human. I do fear the unknown. I don’t know what that first glance in the mirror will be like. I already lost my breasts 2 and a half years ago, but aesthetically I have had two sets of implants now. So I don’t know what a flat chest will look like.

I have such a beautiful support system (my husband), family, and friends are surrounding us in prayer! Please if you pray, pray with us. I just ask for peace that surpasses all understanding.

I don’t have a lot in me today. So I will keep it short. Blessings all…🙏🏻

This last weekend my hubby took me out, and I felt like a princess/ballerina 🩰
Ironically this was taken 2 plus years ago before my first set of implants after my double mastectomy. Same place at Christmas.

There’s a place where fear has to face the God you know, my place is now!

~ Lisa M. Boyd ~ 5 Comments

“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matt. 18:19–20.) Prayer, then, is the vehicle whereby we invite His Spirit to be with us.

I wasn’t going to speak out loud about this, but I know so many of you who pray for us. My next surgery will be the removal of my implants, and I will be going flat. I will be fit with a prosthesis that I can wear, essentially my implants are making me sick. When Brad asked my surgeon what he would do if I was his wife he said “encourage her to go flat, and love her just as she is”. I didn’t think my breast cancer journey would lead to this. Now understand this I can’t feel my implants nor my whole backside, but I still feel as if I have breasts. I am almost 49, and I know they are not my identity. I just look at life,(advertisement after advertisement and breasts all part of these ads). I have had breasts since my youth. I have a very loving husband who is telling me, and reassuring me I am beautiful and he will love me through this all.

I know God has a plan, yet I can’t see it at the moment. I am grabbing on to the cross with all my might, but my emotions are so up and down. Please if you pray, pray for us and with us! What am I asking for? Peace that surpasses all understanding. My biggest fear is what the first glance in the mirror will look like when the bandage comes off. I do know my quality of life will be better, which benefits Brad and I. I haven’t even rode my mountain bike once this year. That’s so not me! We just want my life back! So please all prayer warriors join us if you will as we need to feel God’s overwhelming presence in this time 🎀

One-Liner Wednesday –God the ultimate surgeon

~ Lisa M. Boyd ~ 9 Comments

“Prayer is the best medicine, and God is the best doctor”.

Friday at 12:00 o’clock I will be the patient that is represented in the picture above. I will be undergoing my 5th surgery is 2 years on my breasts. I know God will stand right at my side. I absolutely love the picture above, it is beautiful! It is a perfect representation of all I need to carry me!

I saw my surgeon yesterday, and what was supposed to be done October 28th was asked of me for this Friday. Honestly I could hardly breathe as tears streamed down my face when I got the phone call while shopping. All I could do was say let me call my husband. This is just so soon. I knew we both knew it was what needed to be done. So here we go again! As faith will carry us, and God as our guide. We are tired, I am more than tired. So if you pray, please join us! I am God’s, and although I am far from understanding all of this trauma to my body, I have to remain in good spiritual health. Blessings all…🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻 Breast Cancer Warrior 🎀

https://lindaghill.com/2022/09/21/one-liner-wednesday-dragons-and-fairy-tales/

Mine had no color at all, a tale for all

~ Lisa M. Boyd ~ 11 Comments

Okay now again, try it again. I dropped my brush upon the canvas. Waiting with great anticipation, and again nothing. Black and white bled from the brush, and even onto the paper dripping to the floor. There was no color that came from my brush at all. I saw the example of this most colorful illustration, and I clearly understood the instructions. What the heck…where were the colors I see in me. I was beginning to feel I had something truly wrong with me as I looked down, and even my art apron was soaked with the paint that spilled. There was not an ounce of color at all. I wreaked of darknesses call

I was beyond confused, and frustration was now holding tight the paint brush. I will prove to you all I am capable of making something just like that piece that hangs with life’s ambition. I will prove all of you wrong about me. I will scream every color of the rainbow. Didn’t I have favor in anyones eyes that I could indeed make a prize winning art like what was on display. What had become of the color that once resided in me? I was filled to the brim, and it came out of the creases in my smile. I was once so playful, and hope was the fragrance I wore. I must be holding the brush wrong, maybe I was not the artist I was thought to be. Maybe there was no color inside of me was now my reality. Not even a tinge of color at all. What a sad colorless life I was living, was I dead

I put the paints down in search of my color, I wanted back what was once so freely given to me. My canvas was as dark as coal, and I felt death was knocking on my door. As I was rummaging through to find the answer I was throwing empty booze bottles over my right and left shoulders. Bottle after bottle a collection that when I looked slightly over my right shoulder made me shudder. All of that I had consumed. Doomed! It was no wonder I saw no hope, all that hope drowned the day I I wet my soul with the lies of that damn bottle. I nursed it until no end. With each sip…green gone. Drink some more you alcoholic horror. Took the purple too. Who knew?

I now know everyone did except for me, putting down the bottle in complete surrender was the only way I had even a chance of color coming back to me. I had the desperation of a dying woman, and I was ready to take the steps necessary so one day sometimes quickly sometimes slowly I could paint something as spirited with colors vast as the painting my instructor asked me to make so many a year ago

Sometime has passed since I have picked up the brush, and I was working so hard on one day at time letting go and letting God. I was finding this solution to live free of the bottle that once encumbered me. I was now living, and loving this whole new way of life I found with a my God, and simple yet hard 12 step program. I could see this progress of self, and this life that once felt like deadly venom took over was now do I dare say being filled with hope. Yes that is what I will share. That was my story of experience, strength, and hope. The colors I see coming back into me, I don’t look the same. I don’t look like I did the first day I walked in the rooms. Nor do I look like my mug shot. I am coming back around to solid ground, I think I am ready with the strength I find with my God to paint again. I believe from the depths of my soul that my painting now will not lack a single color. It will be a magnificent masterpiece of my father’s hand, and the transformation from death to life. Hope will drip off the table, and all over my art apron. Jesus indeed take my very broken wings, colorless and lifeless. He gave me flight of color that would blind the blind. Look at me now, look at me then. My canvas is still being made, and I think it will never be finished. Just as when I wake His mercies are new every morning. Hope is a huge part of His story! Hope is my new mission, and this story does not have “the end” as long as I keep my spiritual house clean I can continue to glean hope

Black and white horrid with deaths knock 9 plus years ago
Back at the coloring, my grandson and I. These are the gifts I get one day at a time making a conscious decision to turn my will, and my life over to God! I am His! Color me hope, color me free

http://amanpan.blog/2022/08/30/moonwashed-weekly-challenge-vivacious-august-30-2022/

My butterfly ballad

~ Lisa M. Boyd ~ Leave a comment

At one time for years I thought I had this perfect swagger to the dance I shared with the bottle. I was sure I could model this ballad after Travolta. I am sure now it would have repulsed ya

At one time I thought I was elegant with each step in sync. Little did I know my feet were toppling over one another in a my inebriated stagger. The ballad I waltzed to was in my head. The record needle scratching, and screeching to the beat of my feet. My audience begging me to stop, might as well have been dead. I had a zombie state of mind. Thinking I was oh so fine

As I now fast forward to my dance today some years later, my feet do indeed move more swiftly in-sync. Today when I wake I start my day off with prayer, and from there I am not in a need of my same dance partner I had in the booze. The ballad has changed its tune in my heart. It’s pure art, made from musical notes of peace and serenity. Something that with each chord rings a melody of redemptions freedom played upon my deepest vein

As I place my feet upon the floor they are in one accord with the notes orchestrated by Jesus’s hand, not my own nor made by man. My feet glide, and they are free of my toes entanglements. My ears hear the melody of the new ballad written for me. I dance oh so beautifully, because I am free of the bottle that once enveloped my whole being. It’s my butterfly waltz

My once very broken wings were given flight of dance. So colorful, and youthful this new ballad made for me by Him…Because I was made for Him by Him. The ballad my feet dance too are a hymnal to my heart, pure art by my makers hand..Jesus takes my hand, asks me for this dance, as we cut a rug oh so snug in His will

https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2022/08/25/

Laying my mother-in-law to rest tomorrow

~ Lisa M. Boyd ~ 6 Comments

Prepping Bible verses, listening to my husband’s hearts share as we lay his mom to rest tomorrow.

We know her final resting place is in the arms of Jesus. She was a believer, and that brings us so much peace. My husband is at the age where many of his friends are losing their parents. This loss brings him to the loss of both his dad, and mom. It really makes you think, and ponder the years of your life.

The City of Spokane Police Chaplain happens to be a dear friend of mine. He is doing her service. He just texted asking if I was ready with my Bible verses. I am (tearfully) I am.

Psalms 23 

1 The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing. 

2 He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, 

3 he refreshes my soul. He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake. 

4 Even though I walk through the darkest valley,I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. 

5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. 

6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

She was an artist this was their family Christmas card in the 70’s. She was so talented! My husband is the one holding “from L.A.”.