Now begins the next God-you-had-better-do-this-and-FLEX moment.

I feared my pending visits to the plastic surgeons. I feared them not getting it; not supporting MY decision and them trying to talk me out of something I knew God was calling me into. But I prayed up and all over myself and I was ready to start having these hard conversations even if it meant they didn’t get it or me.

And let’s just say…I wasn’t wrong in my assumptions. The first doctor I saw wrecked me. It was bad. Like really bad. She gawked at me like I was a freak show. She even said to me, “You know…it is my job to add beauty, not to take it away. You look like someone who works very hard to care for her body. If you do this, you are going to regret it. It’s not going to look good, at all.” The sound of my heart shattering into a thousand pieces…once again.

Her lips kept moving but I could no longer hear her. In my mind, I was running to the throne room of my King, pounding on the gates, shouting the name, Jesus, and trusting heaven’s gates to swing wide at the mention of His name. I pleaded, “Jesus…come. Protect me. You promised you would go before me and protect me. This is scarring me. Everything she is saying is scaring me. Come – and protect me.”

Suddenly, I felt emboldened to ask her a simple question. Had she ever done anything like this before? Had she ever taken breast implants out of someone and left them out? She stopped, rolled her little stool back, and slumped herself forward a bit as her eyes rolled back in her head trying to recall a time. After a drawn-out pause, she replied, “No. No, I have not. I have only taken them out to replace them.”

And there it was. The truth.

She continued to evaluate me. Eyeballing me. Measuring this and measuring that. I kept praying and seeking the rescue of my sinking soul. And like a sudden gust of fresh, strong wind, He came.

She began to give me her final evaluation, telling me she didn’t think I should remove my implants at all, but in fact, they were simply too big for my frame. She began to try and convince me that I would be much happier with a smaller size. And then, suddenly, she took a big silent pause, seemingly a bit agitated with herself, and said, “Am I thrusting my opinion on you?” She took her right hand and tapped her right temple a few times, as she said, “Because there is this voice in my head, telling me that I am shoving my opinion down your throat. Am I doing that?”

Ahhh…Father. You are here!

“Ummm…yes. Yes, you are. But you have never done this before, nor has anyone asked this of you before, so I can understand your confusion. You don’t know where you have never been. And you’re not responsible for what you don’t know.”

Grace gave her a warm hug.

And with that, her countenance became one of greater humility and kindness. She said if that’s what I wanted to do, who was she to say no? She wrote up a quote for me and walked quietly around her office, seemingly a little dazed and confused. She just encountered the Kingdom of God and was met with grace. It’s enough to confuse anyone.

Oh…and I forgot to mention that the doctor told me in closing that it is not true you have to get the implants removed every 10 years or so. Only if there are issues or problems. Of which I was having none of. “Well she can’t be right,” I thought to myself.

Needless to say, she was not the doctor for me. I left her office that day a little banged up and worse for the wear. I called my mentor, Renee, and bawled. I told her how scared and confused I know was. I told Renee I desperately needed to cling to the remembrance that I know that I know that God is calling me, inviting me to this, and I am responding with my yes.

Renee said something that still sticks with me. She said I did not have to remember what God had said, but that He is a God who sends us fresh confirmation, each day, as needed. Each day He makes fresh bread. And the manna is just for today.

We prayed and asked the Lord to continue to confirm His word for me. Before hanging up, Renee said she had been meaning to tell me to call a plastic surgeon she knew. His name is Travis Holcombe. She said he’s a kind man who loves Jesus and happens to be a plastic surgeon. She gave me his number. I hung up with Renee and made my appointment with Dr. Holcombe.

Another four weeks would pass before I would see Dr. Holcombe. Each day felt like an eternity.