Unknowns…

No one likes the unknown. It’s so, well… unknown. Uncertain. Difficult.

I’ve got an unknown of my own I’m facing right now. As many of you know, about two months back I got some great news from my doctor… when going in to check out some severe ear pain I was having, she took her scope, looked in, and said, “Ew… that’s nasty!”

My eardrum was ruptured.

So I’ve been seeing a specialist for the past month or so. After two months and five different antibiotics, the infection that caused the ruptured eardrum has finally started to clear… but my hearing has not improved. Friday, he planned to lance the eardrum and drain it (fluid buildup generally causes the hearing loss), but decided against it, because it appeared there was some sort of abnormal growth behind the eardrum.

An unknown.

In describing it, he used a lot of medical terms for possibilities (including that rather ominous word, “tumor”), most of which were rather incomprehensible to me. The bottom line though? He just didn’t know. So he’s ordered a CAT scan to find out what’s going on.

So, later this week the unknown will be less uncertain (hopefully).

As for now? There’s one fact I can definitely hang my hat on:

God knows.

As with our entire lives, God knows and holds the future. In Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, he taught:

²⁵Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? ²⁶Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

²⁸And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. ²⁹Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. ³⁰If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? ³¹So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ ³²For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. ³³But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. ³⁴Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

I have nothing to worry about. Even if that unknown growth turns out to be something awful.

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For more readings on my battle with cholesteatoma, check out these posts:

Also… if you want to connect with me and others battling cholesteatoma? Check out this Facebook page for “Cholesteatoma Survivors”.