Remembrance: A Letter from the Valley

I don’t often share my testimony—not in the raw, unvarnished way that exposes the ache beneath the surface. Most days it feels easier to smile, to brush off questions with light answers, and keep the deeper story pressed close to my chest.

But the truth is this: the Lord has carried me through more than I ever imagined I could endure. He has walked with me through nights when pain was louder than prayer, through mornings when even swinging my legs out of bed felt impossible. I live in a body marked by chronic pain—pain that does not fade when the sun rises, pain that has followed me as faithfully as my own shadow.

Five abdominal surgeries.
Eight knee surgeries.
Thirteen in total—and now a fourteenth awaits.

Each scar carries a story. Some stretch across my abdomen, etched reminders of nights I thought might be my last. Others lace across my knees, fine white threads stitched into skin to hold together what has been broken again and again. My body has become a testimony written in stitches and incisions, a map of valleys I never chose to walk but where God has always walked with me.

The Weight of Sickness

Sickness does not just weigh down the body—it presses into the soul. It creeps into routines, rearranges calendars, reshapes friendships, and shrinks dreams. Chronic pain rewrites life in its own language. The simplest tasks become monumental: standing at the sink, crossing a room, falling asleep without waking to a throb in the dark.

Hospitals leave their mark too. The antiseptic sting lingers in the nose long after discharge. The beeping of monitors hums in memory. And recovery—the long stretch of braces, swelling, follow-ups—can feel heavier than the surgery itself.

Sometimes the hardest weight is silence. The way suffering hides beneath clothes and smiles until the gown slips low or the sleeve rides up. The way invisible battles stay unseen, leaving you to wonder if anyone notices how much you’re really carrying.

Remembrance

Over this last year, the Lord has spoken one word over me again and again: remembrance.

At first, I didn’t understand. But slowly, He taught me. To remember His faithfulness when pain blinded me. To remember His nearness in nights I thought would never end. To remember that even when my body felt beyond repair, my spirit was never abandoned.

Remembrance became an anchor—steady, sure, pulling me back to every moment He carried me before. And as surgery number fourteen approaches, I cannot think of a word more fitting. How else do you step toward another operating room except by remembering that the same God who brought you through thirteen will bring you through this one too?

Met in Despair

One recovery in particular nearly broke me. My body had been cut, stitched, and braced once again, and the doctors told me I would have to learn to walk all over again.

They brought out a walker, the kind that feels more like a cage than support. My leg dangled uselessly beneath me, too fragile to bear weight, too heavy to lift. The nerve block still gripped it, leaving it numb and foreign, as if someone had tied a cinder block where my limb should be.

The first attempt was agony. I tried to drag that unresponsive leg forward while balancing on the other, arms trembling as they bore my weight against the cold metal bars of the walker. Sweat gathered on my back, my breath came short, and humiliation burned hotter than the pain. My body screamed “no” with every futile effort.

At last I collapsed into the hospital bed, tears spilling hot, frustration pressing in tighter than any brace. I wanted to quit. To tell them to wheel me back, to admit that this body was too broken to keep trying.

But it was there—right there in the despair—that God met me.

Not with instant healing. Not with a miracle that erased the heaviness. But with grace. A presence closer than the nurse’s steady hands. A whisper that slipped deeper than the numbness in my leg: “My power is made perfect in weakness.”

So I tried again. Step by halting step, breath by ragged breath, dragging what felt impossible forward. Not because my strength was enough, but because His grace filled the place where I had nothing left.

Yet My Testimony

Revelation 12:11 declares: “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony…”

This is mine.

Thirteen surgeries. Five abdominal. Eight knee. Countless nights in pain. And yet—I am still here. Still breathing. Still believing. Still declaring that my God is good.

The enemy would chain me to misery. He would have me see only ruin in my scars. But I refuse. My scars are not ruins—they are altars. Every line etched in my skin is a place where I can point and say: Here, the Lord carried me. Here, He sustained me. Here, I was at my weakest, yet never forsaken.

The Eternal Weight

Paul called his trials “light and momentary” in 2 Corinthians 4:17. And there are days I want to laugh—what about this feels light? What about years of pain, surgeries, and sleepless nights feels momentary?

Yet I understand what he meant. Compared to eternity, this is dust. Compared to the glory waiting on the other side of these fragile years, these scars are seeds—sown in weakness but destined to bloom in glory.

The Story Isn’t Finished

So yes, surgery number fourteen is near. And yes, I am weary. My body is tired of fighting. My heart is tired of bracing. But my spirit remembers.

I remember the valleys where He never left me.
I remember the steps He gave me when I thought I couldn’t stand.
I remember that not one scar has been wasted, not one tear ignored, not one prayer unheard.

So I step forward again—not without trembling, but with remembrance as my shield and testimony as my sword.

The weight of sickness is heavy.
But the weight of glory is greater.
And my story, by His grace, is not finished yet.