Brain Tumours to Bible Study

Yes! Brain Tumours to Bible Studies! That is exactly how 2022 started out!

I was not feeling so good before 2022 and not being one who likes taking any sort of medication I persisted and kept ignoring the pain. I always had a headache and couldn’t explain it. I just thought it was a sinus issue. The pain was getting worse and that’s when I realised this headache was no ordinary headache. It was more like physical pain around my scalp. So I decided ok let’s see what my Doctor has to say about that.

Yep, He sent me for an MRI and there they were. Three of them. Benign thank God but there. One was sitting right on top of my brain, pushing it down. The other two are around my eardrums.

That was January. I pretty much came home from that appointment and wrote a letter to my husband about our beautiful 38 years together. I was a little rattled but thankful they were benign and I was not going to die.

By February I was pumping and making a Tepee for my grandsons birthday. I was also looking at my business, making things, selling them, and working out ways to make sure it ran smoothly whilst I would be in recovery. I did not stop. Until my operation on February 16th.

A couple of days before my operation I woke up early and had this overwhelming sense to write a blog. Yep a Blog! called “Thinking outside the Box” So I did that! And I prayed and prayed constantly that everything would go smoothly, and I would have clarity and wake up from the operation and be clear thinking and not affected at all and could continue creating and working with God by my side. I also had the greatest sense of calm in not knowing what my future would hold at this point, and because I was trusting in the Lord and His word and how He had already put me in the hands of the best doctors at this point.

Back then I had one website with everything in it. Christian stuff and general stuff. It was good but messy as it did not really connect to a Christian audience directly.

The operation was a success and thanks be to God for my wonderful surgeon Professor Stephen Lewis and his staff at Hollywood Hospital in Claremont, Western Australia.

A couple of hours after the operation, well I mean straight after I was awake and clear thinking! So much to the point I rang my husband who did not expect to hear from me at all. He was a bit dumb founded, I think! Just to think I was awake and so alert! Thank You Jesus, again you heard my prayers.

When I woke up in my room, I had a great sense that everything was going to be fine.

Whilst I was lying in that bed, I could hear the Lord talking to me in the many hours I slept to recover for the next five days. He was telling me about Country Grace and what I needed to do moving forward from this bed.

I was smiling most the time and could not wait to get home and get started. He told me to separate my business into two and have all my general range of products on the ETSY website and all the Christian stuff on my main website. He also mentioned that the Bible study I had created had to be tangible. My first response was ‘really? tangible?’. Here I was, not wanting to put it on the website and wondering how I was going to sell it in box form. I realised then that the Lord was going to show me a way to make it work and the peace I was feeling was a sign that it was going to be successful. This is where ‘Be still and know that I am God’ Psalm 46:10 really hit home.

The Lord is amazing in the way he will tell you how to go about things. I think up until this point I was sort of half listening to everything. I was praying a lot about life and about the fact the business was previously going nowhere.

Many, many, things have happened since that day of receiving the news about the tumours. Its like I have been given a second chance to get it all right and to do it Gods way and not my way. So, so important to open your mind and your ears to His calling on your life.

Over the last year and a bit it has been a bit of a rollercoaster ride till now. First the operation, then the recovery process which took longer than I thought (around four months) then thinking I was good to go and going off to church for the first time in months (not recommended after and operation and during a covid epidemic). I came home from church and within two days got covid full blown (horrible painful unbearable) are words that come to mind. It took ages to get over that and be able to concentrate properly to get things done.

From there I started getting the sense I was to create something bigger and better for Country Grace and started thinking about and praying about adding a membership to this website. It is only the Lord Himself that can inspire you to do something you never thought you could do. That is exactly what I realised again. So, I have dedicated the last year of 2022 to the Lord and not gone back to work (which would have only been part time anyways) and I have created a website now with a membership for the inspired Christian woman from 13 year olds to 25+. (Opening Soon)

Its obviously where the Lord was leading me all along.

It’s good that we don’t have a crystal ball. This would be a disaster for all of us if we could see our future good and bad. I think it would stop us in our tracks and we would do nothing! The Lord is Good!

My message here is to anyone who is going through something, and you cannot see the ending being a good one. Stand back and listen. ‘Be still and know that I am God’ is paramount to anything you are going through at the moment. Even if your diagnosis is not a good one and heaven is your next journey. Know that the Lord is waiting for you to come, to welcome you and to love on you.

We can’t change our situation even if we wanted to, so ‘taking each day as it comes’ is the best mantra to have.

Knowing that your future is bright whether it is here or in heaven should bring a sense of calm into our being.

Especially under the guidance of the Lord. because through your prayer life, and during this your lifetime, you will hopefully see change for the better.

Christine Stephanie Mammarella

24th February 2023.