Gindi Vincent

The Dish on Career, Fashion, Faith, and Family

Gindi

Miracles in the Middle

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I needed to write before I went into my appointment at MD Anderson.  Before I understand more.  Before I know the treatment course. 

I wanted to make sure I capture the miracles. 

Two weeks ago today, my doctor called and said a biopsy found a ductal carcinoma on my right breast. 

In my life, there are before and after moments. 

The first one I remember is at 12.  Before and after my parents divorce.  When the world as I knew it tipped on its axis. 

Before and after marriage, almost 15 years ago.  And world shifting moments since then – before and after infertility, before and after children, before and after Bray’s job loss. 

So here’s another one of those.  In the year of our Lord, 2020. 

In the midst of the news, and the logistics, and  the processing, there have been miracles.  God working in every single moment. 

On Day 1, I spoke with two women who gave me insight into their own personal stories of recent breast cancer and treatment at MD Anderson.  As a result, I went on line that night and filled out a form to get in to see a team there. 

On Day 2, at 8 am, I received a phone call from MD Anderson.  I’d been told it could take months to get in and I should consider seeing other doctors in order to get an evaluation more quickly.  Yet here was this woman on the other end of the line saying she could make appointments for me on what would be Day 11 and Day 12. 

That same evening, a dear friend and mentor of mine introduced me to his friend leading a team at MD Anderson.  He recommended a specific surgeon in the department.  I looked into the team I’d been assigned to see on Day 12 and realized the oncologist is not one that would be who I would ultimately settle on.  He didn’t have the background or experience I was looking for in the oncologist that would be with me through the entire process. 

Meanwhile, my closest friends and family members were praying like crazy.  We had told the children and they had shared with some close friends at school, and teachers, and a few more people began to cover our family in their prayers. 

On Day 3, MD Anderson called again.  I explained that I did not want to lose my appointment but I knew the oncologist I was assigned wouldn’t be a fit.  She said she’d check for the next available team appointment.  The next opening was only ONE BUSINESS DAY LATER, today, and the surgeon on the team was the very one the MD Anderson team lead had recommended.  The same one. 

I said YES PLEASE! Another miracle.

On Day 4, I wrote about the diagnosis here and the gates of Heaven were barraged by the prayers of so many on my behalf. The biggest miracle of all.

On Friday, Day 12, when I went into my first MD Anderson appointment for testing, another miracle.  They repeated the mammograms and ultrasound and noted possible bilateral biopsy.  That was to investigate other areas of concern.  They spent time US-ing my lymphnodes.  When the technician came back, she reported no further areas of concern and I was free to go. 

Let me be clear here.  Everyone has different results.  The fact that my results went one way while another’s come out differently does not reflect anything about their faith or their prayers or their community of support. 

But what is important for my individual story, as I process, is for me to acknowledge the hand of God in every thing that happens.  The big and the small.  The significant and the minute.  Because God is not just a God of the mighty miracles where seas part and the blind see.  He’s a God of the small miracles.  The daily walking around goodness – in open parking spots and appointment availability and test results and friendship. 

People came as God with skin on these past two weeks. 

They prayed.  We had two Tiff’s Treats deliveries and a delicious loaf of homemade bread. 

Five women from law school sent a “treatment tote” with incredibly thoughtful gifts, crowdsourced from their friends who had gone through this before.  Gifts for the children and button front pajamas for me and even a cute tote I could take to every hospital visit and then throw away when I beat this thing. 

Two of my best friends arrived days later with a bag laden with the softest blankets and sweaters and a diffuser with essential oils.  My best friend had the exact same sweater and wore it on Friday as I wore mine.  Solidarity with me on my first visit when she couldn’t be there. 

There’s more.  Every day, there’s more.  Family and friends and God right smack dab in the middle. 

The miracles started even before “Day 1.”  I was supposed to get a mammogram this month.  But in October, one time in the shower, I thought I felt something. I never felt it again.  But it made me call my doctor and get a mammogram a month and a half earlier than usual. 

I was supposed to get the biopsy results on a Friday.  I’d have gone nuts that weekend.  I couldn’t have DONE anything and it would have done us all in.  The boys on their hunting trip and me having to sit still.  Instead, my dear friend had an appointment (scheduled months ago) with my primary care doctor on Monday morning.  She asked her to go find the results and then I got the call.  On Monday.  When I could spring into action. 

Every day was another miracle. The God of the small and the big.

And no matter what they tell me today, no matter what the course of treatment, I serve that very same God. The one who shows up. The one who cares. The one who acts in all things for His good purpose.

The Diagnosis

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I sat at the blank screen for a while on this one.

I’m out of funny asides and nuanced language. 

My best friend left me a vox telling me how to write this post, so I basically went back and listened to it three times to use as a guide. 

Some of you already know this information.  For some of you, this will be a surprise.

I was diagnosed with breast cancer on Monday. 

I do not have a lot of information. 

All we know right now is that it is Stage 2 invasive ductal carcinoma. 

I had a mammogram and ultrasound a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving.  They found something “of concern.”  I had a biopsy last Wednesday.  And my doctor called Monday. 

I honestly hadn’t planned on writing here anytime soon.  I wasn’t ready to talk about it. 

But we told the kids at dinner Monday night.  Which will still go down as one of the worst things I’ve ever had to do. 

As a part of that, we gave them permission to process it however they needed to.  If they needed to talk with a teacher or friends, then they had my permission to do so.  Or not.  Totally up to each of them.  So they shared with some friends.

And of course we shared with our families and some of my closest prayer warriors.  Then I talked to a few friends who have been through this. 

Which means, it started leaking out.

Since I can’t possibly reach out to everyone that we love and care about to share the news individually, even though I wish I could, I’m writing here.

I’m a little overwhelmed. 

I have triplets to raise and a marriage to foster and a full time job, and none of that stops with this diagnosis. I still need to keep doing those life things. 

So I am sharing what’s happened, and this is where we are. 

I will share parts of this journey here.  Some parts aren’t mine to share. 

I am very grateful for the phone calls and texts and messages and comments.  And most of all, for all your prayers.

I am reading every single one of them, but I’m also not able respond to them all right now. 

I’m also not ready to answer phone calls yet, so if it goes to voicemail know it goes there with great love and thankfulness for your love and support for our family.  My best friend gave me permission not to reply. 

I trust God.

I trust that He will use this for a good purpose. 

He is already at work. 

He is already doing great miracles. 

I will be at MD Anderson with a great medical team on December 18th and 21st.  Please pray for them as well.  Please pray for my husband and my kids.  They are so sad.  But probably in a place where they aren’t ready to talk about it either.

I’m was worn pretty thin by yesterday, just emotionally depleted. But I’m better today – my darling husband took us for the most fun dinner where we sat on the patio and ate great food and laughed. We are still laughing too.  I love you all and am tremendously thankful for you. 

Christmas 2020

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Merry Christmas!

Sorry we’re a little late with the Christmas letter that I promised in our card. (*Sheepish grin, a little diagnosis sent everything a little topsy turvy over here*)

I went back to the master blog post list to remind myself when 2020 started. Because this year has felt like five. Anyone else?

It’s been hard, absolutely. But it’s been good too.

Apparently, I’ve written a total of 1,428 blog posts. Now some of those were back in the days of Wordless Wednesdays, but still, I’m betting it’s right around 1,400. I started this blog a decade ago but forgot to have a big “we’ve been around a decade” party because 2020!

In 2020 though, I only wrote 58 posts. And that was only because I did 28 days of writing in February (pre-pandemic). So without those 28 posts, I wrote 30 posts all year long. My first post of the year, entitled The Ellipsis, would be nearly prophetic for the year the Vincents had ahead. I was coming off of returning from my best friend’s oldest son’s funeral and wrote:

I don’t understand God, yet. (That yet may never be fulfilled this side of heaven.)… I don’t know what’s next, yet. (Maybe I won’t know until the next happens, and so I wait.) This fog won’t lift, yet. (It will lift. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. – John 1)

As a Type A planner, this is the most unplanned I’ve ever been. Darn near unraveling. But maybe it takes unraveling to pull together what God has planned instead of what I planned. The dictionary says unraveling means to undo twisted, knitted or woven threads. And Colossians 2 says: I want you woven into a tapestry of love, in touch with everything there is to know of God. Then you will have minds confident and at rest, focused on Christ, God’s great mystery. (The Msg)

So I don’t know, yet, what to expect or want from 2020. Maybe simply to expect or want this unraveling to result in a new tapestry that is woven by the hand of God. Beauty from ashes. Hope from despair. Rebuilt and restored ruins after devastation.(Isaiah 61)

We had unraveling. And devastation. We also had joy and laughter and late nights and wins and an overwhelming number of blessings.

The eldest and I took a mommy and me trip to the National College Football championship in January. Apparently, because of my fog, I didn’t even write about it. I’ll go back this week and remedy that error. He got to see his beloved LSU, headed by Coach O and Joe Burrow, take the championship trophy in New Orleans. The trip was sweet time for me to get away with this boy-man who is increasingly spending time growing into a man with his father and less inclined to cuddle with me.

February was filled with the beginning rumblings of COVID while all three kids played basketball and went to school and Bray and I juggled our full time jobs.

March was when the bottom fell out for the world. It fell out in the U.S. while we were on Spring Break. So we ended up cutting our spring break trip short and promising the kids we’d finish the Utah leg in 2021 (we still hope to do that!). The Grand Canyon and Sedona and Page were absolutely breathtaking and we loved our VRBO house! It was a wonderful trip, even shortened.

The spring for us, like for all of you parents out there, meant juggling home schooling with being cooped up at home and doing your full time job from a screen with school zooms in the background. My screen was perched at the corner of our kitchen table while Bray had to continue to go in to work because you can’t remodel backyards from your home office.

We had a quiet Easter at home, enjoyed homeschooling from the farm in May (grandpa was even a class featured guest on cattle drives!), and Bray and I celebrated our 14 year anniversary.

There were so many hard conversations as the world tipped over with pandemic sickness and death, racial injustice, and political instability. We also had lighter conversations over the summer as we baked and cooked our way through all our favorite chefs and swam and remodeled our backyard!

That was the biggest gift of all – and I still need to do a post on that oasis we’ve had this year. It became a respite for all of us as well as other family and friends.

Of course, in August and October, the double punch of Hurricane Laura and Hurricane Delta smashed into the incredible Vincent family farm. Laura was the most devastating, tearing apart generations old barns and wiping entire structures off the map. All of SW Louisiana was devastated, and my mother in law and father in law were not exempted. It’s been long months of rebuilding, and it will take many more months, but the main house is now livable and so many friends contributed to help the Vincents rebuild. It is slow work, but it will be done because that plot of land has been rebuilt over 10 generations.

Fall began to resemble normalcy otherwise. The kids were blessed to be able to return to in person school. Little bit ran cross country with junior high athletes and excelled. She can’t wait for track in the spring. The boys played 7-on-7 football and their team won the championship Tully Bowl. A big deal here in Houston and a great balm to the soul. Currently, little bit plays with the junior high basketball team and is loving it (this is far and away her favorite sport). The eldest made the junior high soccer team and is loving playing with his friends in a sport he hasn’t played in a few years. And the baby is warming up with one of his best pals for baseball tryouts.

Bray and I each celebrated another turn around the sun in our 40s, the kids turned 11 in the fall, and we are so grateful that each of our parents is with us and celebrating another year. I have missed seeing my father in Oklahoma especially but we are praying after he gets the vaccine and I get my treatments we can visit in person again!

Which of course leads us to the 2020 finale. I was diagnosed with breast cancer this month. God has been in the big and small details and I’m going to be treated at MD Anderson in the medical center and am so thankful we have such incredible resources available to us here in Houston.

My best friend sent me a song this morning, one I love, called Another in the Fire. There’s a line at the end of the song that says, I’ll count the joy come every battle, cause I know that’s where You’ll be.

There is such joy this season. There is such hope this season. There is such peace this season. We do not get it from the incredibly dark circumstances around us. We find it in the manger and we find it in the cross. We find it in knowing that we are not alone. “In all things God works for the good of those who love Him…” (Romans 8:28)

We wish you a very Merry Christmas and a 2021 filled with promise, love, joy and healing.

Love, The Vincents

Such A Great Cloud of Witnesses

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Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us… [Hebrews 12:1]

That verse has been rolling around in my head the past week.  Especially these six words:

Such A Great Cloud of Witnesses.

While I know what it refers to in the scripture, it’s taken on new meaning for me lately. 

You see, in Hebrews 11, there’s this incredible roll call of some of the fathers and mothers of the Christian faith.  It goes something like this, by faith, this person did this thing that was pretty crazy…  And that’s repeated over and over.

Then it moves straight from that set of 40 verses into these words: therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses.  This reminds us that we are part of the church universal.  A bit player in the storyline from Genesis to Revelation.  Potential tools that God can use for His kingdom purpose during the time we have here on Earth. 

But that great cloud has always felt abstract.  The closest it felt was in the form of my grandparents who have passed away but left a powerful legacy of faith behind. 

I’ve come to see, that great cloud of witnesses is here today too. 

In fact, I’ve really felt that great cloud around me this past week. 

Women of faith who God has extravagantly allowed me to share life with in these crazy times. 

My dear friend and prayer partner of 17 years who is a powerful prayer warrior and prophet, pressing into deeply challenging work. 

My ‘cord of three’ who I speak to every day, my best friend in Minnesota and our dear friend here in Houston, who have laughed and cried and prayed and encouraged each another, sometimes all at the same time.

A complete surprise bonus group, a discipleship bible study I have on Fridays, who have become so completely dear as well as integral to my spiritual growth.

A few moms from my kids school who have felt more like sisters instead of parent sojourners. 

And then, of course, my family, there at the center of it all.

As each of them have prayed with and for me this last week, those words kept cropping up in my head. 

Such a great cloud of witnesses. 

If these witnesses are both here in the present, as well as those who have gone before in the storyline of faith, what is it that they encourage us to do?  They help us “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.”  The ESV translation says “lay aside every weight…”

Sin, for me, has been more obviously defined.  Lying, cheating, stealing, gossiping, gluttony, etc. 

But what about the weights that hold us back?  The things that hinder us?  Those are things we’re supposed to be able to shake off because of this GREAT CLOUD OF WITNESSES. 

What weighs you down? 

For me, it’s the same old weights year after year.  Worry.  Anxiety.  Stress.  Fear.  Busyness.  Distraction. 

They weigh me down and they keep me from truly running the faith marathon God has for me.  We’re supposed to run this race with endurance and this great cloud of witnesses buoys our ability to do so. 

If you, especially in this harsh 2020 environment, have been weighed down by burdens, look around.  In addition to being a character in the arc of God’s faith storyline, we are in this time and this place with others running the marathon at the same time.  They are also witnesses to our race and we are witnesses to theirs. 

Make a list of those around you. 

Let us encourage each other. 

We can challenge each other, pray for each other, cheer each other on, and remind one another to strip off every weight that slows us down.  Call out the fear or worry or distraction and hold each other accountable. 

Keep running.  And to my great cloud of witnesses, running in 2020 alongside me, thank you.

Wrestling with an Angel

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We bought an angel.  One of those lighted tall twiggy angels for our front yard Christmas display.  I wanted a new lighted twiggy nativity scene but the one I found was sold out.  So I settled on this angel. 

We did not need any more yard décor.  But 2020. 

I felt we needed to go bigger and brighter to cheer up our street (or our family or the world, who knows).  We paid to have roof lights hung.  We bought a few more items for the front.  None of them go together.  We have a dog and a Santa.  An angel and a polar bear.  Charlie Brown and Snoopy with a Christmas tree.  We have white lights and colored lights.  It is happy. 

Merry and bright.

After it was all up, there was a big rain storm Friday and Saturday.  Then winds from a cold front hit on Sunday.  So the yard blow ups were all muddy and that brand new angel was splat on the ground. 

Her upper body did not want to stay connected to her lower body.  Her wings kept disconnecting.  I stood there in the cold with my arms wrapped around this angel begging her (in my head) to just stay assembled! 

At that moment, I almost stepped outside of myself and saw me and this angel in a wrestling match on my front lawn.  Her collapsing every time I let go.  God please let this angel stay connected so I can JUST GO INSIDE, I begged in my head. 

WAIT.

Excuse me, what was that?

YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO WAIT. 

Lest you think I’m losing my mind, I often have conversations with God in my head, over the big and small. A back and forth dialogue.  There’s no booming voice.  No audible whisper.  Really, it’s usually just an impression or a word. 

So here we were.  Me, a lawn angel, and God…

I’ve had to do some waiting the past few weeks. 

Waiting for news.  Waiting and praying that somehow, some way, God would just speed up the process of me getting the answer for which I’m doing all the waiting. 

No chance. 

I’m sort of terrible at waiting. 

I’m a woman of action. 

I need to DO. 

So, of course, God is constantly letting me wait.  Because He needs me to learn a lesson already for Pete’s sake!!!

I realized, while hugging a twiggy angel, that I’d been offered several messages about waiting over the past few days.  A sermon.  A post.  Podcast, song, reading, FB group, text… 

The message is something like this: Waiting = Hope. 

Don’t miss it.

Waiting = Hope. 

Waiting (apparently) expands your faith. 

I’m even doing an advent study right now and this week’s meditation is on silence/waiting. The author leading the study shared this passage from Henri Nouwen:

I still like to keep up the illusion that I am in control of my own life.  I like to decide what I most need, what I will do next, what I want to accomplish and how others will think of me.  While being so busy running my own life, I become oblivious to the gentle movements of the Spirit of God within me, pointing me in directions quite different from my own.  It requires a lot of inner solitude and silence to become aware of these divine movements.  God does not shout, scream or push.  The Spirit of God is soft and gentle like a small voice or a light breeze.  It is the spirit of love.

It’s the 1 Kings 19 description of Elijah’s encounter with God – not in the earthquake or fire but in the gentle whisper. 

Waiting.  In the quiet. 

There is so little quiet around these days.  I mean, even when we’re stuck at home, we fill it with noise.  So how on earth are we going to hear the still small voice of God over the din? 

All too often we’re stuck waiting way longer than we need to because we just can’t hear anything. 

Until we’re on our quiet front lawn cleaning and reassembling Christmas décor… or maybe that’s just me.

Taking time to wrestle with the things we can’t see, the things that test our faith (For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the cosmic powers over this present darkness…). 

I’m still waiting.

And wrestling. 

If you’re worried about the twiggy angel, well she’s standing up by herself now.  A combination of Bray’s garbage ties, some extra metal stakes, and persistence paid off. 

For now.