Finding Beauty in the Loss of Control - Britt Fisk

like you said if you're wondering who this girl is up here among these Catholic Giants don't worry I'm wondering the same thing but honestly today I'm just here to tell my story when I finally have when I was younger I was involved in several different leadership organizations and at our annual conventions we always would hire keynote speakers much like the ones you've seen this week their messages were riveting and I always left those sessions ready to change the world and with a desire to be a motivational speaker myself but what I came to realize was that each of these speakers had something in common they had a story and typically it was one of overcoming great adversity of defying odds and all in all of carrying one's cross and at the time I was missing that I was missing a story 2020 would change that for me and I'm sure there's so many of you out here in the audience that could say the same thing it was up until that point I had lived a fairly normal life of course I had challenges I made so many mistakes and there was my share of heartache and misdirection along the way but by and large I had grown up with Incredible parents and models of faith I follow the typical path of receiving my education spreading my wings and finally discovering my vocation as a wife and mother and for 12 years we've been back on our family ranch raising cattle and children my husband and I have eight of them and what appears to be the perfect life we have land for them to run a small community for them to grow up in which affords them a simple life in what seems like a very chaotic world right now and we have a beautiful Catholic Church just down the road we were always open to life and I was determined to be the very best mother and wife I could be that was my vocation I wanted to be a saint and I still do but I wanted to be in control we chose to homeschool something I never thought we would do and our days were filled with great meals with the kids helping cook them arts and crafts games routines discipline and a lot of fun when others asked me how do you do it all I simply shrug my shoulders thinking isn't this what everyone else does but I was completely self-reliant I thought I was in control but did I trust God of course I did I had eight kids I mean isn't that all what trusting God is about I prided myself on not bothering God I had a deep faith and I never questioned his presence but I was fine and he could worry about somebody who needed him more I needed him but I could make it but little did I know I knew nothing nothing about trusting him at the beginning of 2020 after a failed business relationship my dear sister lost a baby in utero and you would think I had lost one of my own a long-standing poor relationship with a family member brought me to the very edge and soon after I had a meeting with our Parish priest to go through it all to unpack it and that meeting went South after that I reached my Breaking Point it was then feeling completely abandoned that another priest brought something very important to light he said are you seeking a love and acceptance from someone here the only God can give you and as I sat back and thought about it amidst the pain I knew I was I learned I had to truly let go of everything of my control and I had to find the beauty in turning my life completely over to him I had to find the beauty in the opposite of control in Trust he was teaching me to trust then because he would know how desperately I would soon need it in August of that year our eighth baby was born named after three powerful Saints Agnes Mary Madeleine came into our arms with a host of health problems much to our surprise you see being the person that I am I'd agree to all of the genetic testing in utero early on in my motherhood I had convinced myself that I was fine having a child with special needs as long as I knew that beforehand and could prepare but God knew better as the nursery nurse weighed and measured our little Agnes I began to hemorrhage and over the hustle and bustle of my doctors and nurses she said just so you know when you change her diaper things don't quite look right and she has a huge bruise down her leg so the first thought that ran through my head and eventually came out was do we even know we have a baby girl can I make that announcement to my family and they weren't sure that evening when our pediatrician made rounds what we thought was just a bruise in actuality was the largest Hemangioma or vascular malformation or pediatrician had ever seen and she wanted to run a hosted tests before we left the hospital before we left we discovered that our seven pound little Agnes had a very rare syndrome called lumbar syndrome and in effect that lower body Hemangioma had then caused urogenital defects a tethered spinal cord an underdeveloped hip an anal rectal malformations we had no clue what all of that meant for her but we were being sent to a Specialized Care team at a major Children's Hospital the next two months with our little girl brought so many questions and so few answers but the day we brought her home to her seven siblings we told them that sweet Agnes would need our constant prayers and our oldest who was 10 at the time looked into her eyes and said oh Agnes we drink from the cup the Lord has given us and not a hair on your head goes unnoticed we drink from the cup that he has given us it would take me another hour or so to tell you of all God's reminders along the way reminders in the forms of conversations from decades past for this very moment Saints finding us when we were so desperate to find the perfect one to intercede on behalf of Agnes just so happening to know a patient of the hematologist that was leading research in lumbar syndrome having met a friend the previous year whose daughter had a spinal de tethering surgery and then receiving oil from the tomb of Saint Philomena without anyone knowing she had already shown herself to be such a powerful intercessor for our baby girl the list goes on and on God had us exactly where he wanted us but it was those little reassurances he knew that I needed in order to keep my eyes focused on his plan and not on my control I also don't have time to tell you the struggles she faced within those first two moments especially with ulcers that developed in her diaper area from her hemangioma she was in constant pain and every time she had a dirty diaper we had to bathe her but even amidst that what we were most concerned about was their tethered spinal cord we were praying for a neurosurgeon who believed in doing a prophylactic surgery for her rather than waiting to see when she became symptomatic because at that point the nerve damage would already be done and we discovered quickly that there were two very different camps of neurosurgeons we were hoping for the prophylactic side it was at her appointment for her lumbar MRI at two months old when the radiologist took one look at her scans and looked at me and said ask the neurosurgeon the tough questions what tough questions so I asked her what what do I need to ask she then looked at me and said ask the neurosurgeon if Agnes will ever walk she'll ever walk at that point we learned she had what they call a chaotic lipoma lipoma is a fatty tissue enveloping her spinal cord which made the detethering extremely difficult if not impossible this neurosurgeon had never seen a more complex MRI so we sent her scans to Boston for a second opinion only to discover that he would suggest not operating at all and his reasoning it was too complex due to her hemangioma an operation could lead to little Agnes Bleeding Out what we thought was a lot to deal with had soon become much more complicated but now it's time that I back up a little bit a few months before Agnes was born after a shower I scratched an itch on the top of my chest only to discover a small knot at the time I convinced myself that of course it was just pray changes associated with the pregnancy and I made a mental note to address it with my OB GYN after Agnes was born but with Agnes's birth and her host of health issues forgot so a week before that MRI in Colorado I received a text message from my grandmother my grandfather who had suffered a stroke the previous year had woken in the middle of the night adamant that I had called him and said something was wrong but that my grandma took the phone from him and never let him know what was wrong so she's texting me and she says Brett can you please convince pop that nothing's wrong so I thought can I just send you a text and let him read it and we tried that but it didn't work so I loaded Agnes up in the car and we drove the 30 miles to see my grandparents I walked in the door and he said see Britt's here to tell me something's wrong and to show me something I said oh Pop Pop I'm here everything's okay but I did bring something to show you I brought Agnes he quickly joked asking if this was my 17th child because he never quite understood why I wanted to have so many kids but then he was at unrest I couldn't convince him that I was okay and so that night going over that in my head I remember it again for the first time that knot I found in June and I reached down to see if it was still there it was bigger I got in touch with my OB GYN the next day and I was scheduled for a mammogram a couple of weeks later I told no one I was convinced it was a clogged milk duct and I didn't want to be silly so we had Agnes's MRI and I told my mom and husband after that three days later my mom came with me to my mammogram finding some suspicious spots in my breasts and lymph nodes they wanted to biopsy the sites that day my thoughts of being frivolous quickly changed something about me just knew and driving home with my mom that day the thought that kept running through my mind was Jesus came here to Earth to experience our humanness in every way imaginable but he didn't have to live without a mom and I didn't know how my children would two days later I received the call I did in fact have breast cancer and it was aggressive my immediate prayer at that point became use me well so then we shifted gears I knew I wanted Andy Anderson to be where I received my Cancer Care and so we tried to move Agnes's care there as well I received recommendations for a neurosurgeon in Houston and my pediatrician tried to set up a third opinion with him in the meantime while waiting to hear back from him a dear friend of mine had a friend who was a neurosurgeon and late one evening she asked who he'd recommend he then told her that if he knew of anyone in the world with Pediatric neurological problems he would send them to a particular neurosurgeon in Houston and that was all I needed to hear at that night I scoured the internet for his email address and I emailed him and I told him everything I then told him that we'd be in Houston very soon I shared Colorado and Boston's opinion on Agnes and I told him I'd be receiving care for my new newly diagnosed breast cancer it was a cry for help and he answered it before I even woke the next morning he cc'd all the other doctors Agnes would need to see and let me know he'd be ready for us as soon as we arrived in Houston within seconds of confirming those appointments a voicemail popped up on my phone it was from two days prior from the neurosurgeon we had been waiting on I had no missed calls I had no voicemail notifications until that very day God had a plan as he always does and he was showing me I needed to trust it I should probably tell you right now that I always had this game going on along the way I would say oh I can handle this particular situation insert any tough situation as long as this doesn't happen I can handle cancer as long as it's early stage only to discover that it already spread to multiple lymph nodes I can handle a Year's worth of treatment only to be in year 2.5 right now I can handle Agnes's tethered spinal cord as long as it can be detathered before she becomes symptomatic only to discover she may never even walk I can handle this as long as this happened and many times the very things I said I couldn't handle did happen because God knew I couldn't handle them but he could and I was a tough student he had to teach me that lesson over and over again I had to stop trying to handle it or to control it I had to stop exerting my will in order that his could be done so I head to Houston thinking I'll be there a week one week turns into two and a half finding more cancer getting my port placed worried kids at home the death of my grandfather and an almost missed five-year-old birthday party but Agnes did meet Dr Sandberg and taking one look at her he said if this was my baby girl we'd have surgery this week but due to insurance we scheduled the surgery for three weeks later and they looked into my tear-filled eyes and said don't worry Mrs Fisk as Agnes was screaming in pain take care of your baby girl he then held me until I regain my composure and soon after we were on an airplane home to catch my daughter Genevieve's fifth birthday party my wonderful parents-in-law's and sister had prepared the birthday party of the ages for gin and after opening all of the presents and eating the cake it was time for bed excited Jen came up to me and said I can't wait for my birthday party tomorrow and I thought um Jen this was your birthday party and she started crying it was really difficult for me not to be frustrated with her and I said what's wrong it says well Mama party's not a party without a pinata and so I assured her that one would be in the mail and made a mental note to check out Amazon that night the very next morning in our mailbox from a friend in Florida was a pinata with a note that Jen might need a little something extra special for her birthday this year God cares about the pinatas in our life too not every single day where we given little signs like these from God but we quickly began to understand like Bishop Barron says that there are no coincidences and every reassurance of who was in control fueled us to take the next big step after my grandfather's funeral I pushed back my chemo start date in order to travel with Jeremy my husband and Agnes back to Houston for her surgery again the plan was to be there for approximately a week I was there only for the surgery on Friday and the first two days in the hospital because I was to begin chemo back home the following Monday but we had to get through the surgery first over and over in my mind I was recalling the statement the doctor in Boston made about Agnes possibly Bleeding Out I went back and forth again and again as to whether or not we were making the right decision would she even make it through surgery and if she did would it cause further damage that morning they wheeled off our almost four-month-old little Agnes and Jeremy and I just gave it all to God because we had to there was nothing we could do they updated us throughout surgery on our cell phones and so when we got the text that they were in the middle of the surgery I breathed a sigh of relief at least she made it through and at this point anything else was extra I just prayed that they could tether as much as possible here's a quick lesson in spinal cords for you normally spinal cords flow in our spinal column and they end just below our rib cages but agnesis was tethered or stuck to her sacrum right at the top of her tailbone because of the lack of freedom to move as she grew her spinal cord stretched and that would then cause the nerve damage and extreme pain she had already reached that point at three months old Not only was she tethered so low but infiltrating her spinal cord was what they called the chaotic lipoma it's a fast-growing fatty tissue at the base of her spine because of its entanglement typically these lipomas are contained hers wasn't it'd be very difficult Not to cause nerve damage while trying to release each of the nerve endings from that fatty Mass so almost eight hours after they took Agnes back for her de tethering her neurosurgeon emerged from surgery with smiling eyes beneath his mask we got it she's too tethered never did I think that would happen I truly believe it was a miracle from God he then took us to a corner of the hospital shook his head breathed a huge sigh and said man that was tough and he reminded us that we had a very long road ahead he informed us that when he cleared as much as he could of the lipoma he then realized that Agnes had spina bifida and she was missing part of her Dura and the muscles surrounding her lower spine in a surgery like this afterwards the greatest Grist is a spinal fluid leak so the closure is Paramount but she wasn't equipped with the means for closure so they created a Dura with bovine pericardium and we all like to joke now that Agnes is our only true cowgirl they then dissected the muscles close to her spine and they created a flap in order to stitch her closed but because of the vascular malformation her skin integrity really wasn't up to par and we knew that healing would be a very long road into ICU she went and I was able to be with her those first two days because of coven only one parent was allowed but she was in so much pain and I couldn't hold her so it wasn't much help she also wasn't voiding so it worried us because that was the first nerve damage to be seen there wasn't much progress before I had to fly home and begin my cancer treatment but Jeremy took over just like the saint he is expecting them home the next weekend I knew we could handle it I bet you know where this might be going my parents took me and our remaining seven children in just like parents can and much like Agnes's surgery I had to go to all of my cancer treatment alone because covid prevented me from having anyone there for support people all the time again asked me how I did it and I can honestly say that I had no part in it was his grace and the grace that flowed through the hundreds of people praying for us I got through the first week as well as can have been expected Agnes did not nearing one week post-surgery she spiked a fever and they noticed spinal fluid on her blanket she had meningitis and she'd need to go in for a second surgery she wasn't coming home that weekend during the repeat surgery they grafted more muscle to hopefully create a tighter closure in an already extremely difficult case she was on heavy antibiotics and in a lot of pain luckily though after that second surgery she began voiding on her own was a huge gift from God and the assurance that he was still right there Christmas was nearing and we thought all things were going well but her spinal fluid began to leak again luckily this time though it was only internally if it became external from the huge bulge in the lower back which was full of spinal fluid we were then looking into a brain shunt praise God that never happened she was tapped daily and administered in a pressure dressing until the fluid stopped building but she wasn't coming home and that meant we would spend her first Christmas apart I had one more round of chemo before they arrived home and we decided at that point to hire a nanny for up to a year we needed someone to help caring for the kids to help homeschooling and to do everything that I typically did so Jeremy could continue to work and I could get through treatment but I was a stay-at-home mom I was a homeschooling mom I had to let go of who I was and I realized quickly how much I struggled with pride I had to come to the come to terms with the fact that I wasn't the mom who I wanted to be and I couldn't be that throughout my treatment I needed help after two chemo sessions I returned to Houston for scans my lymph node tumors were growing the chemo wasn't working it was in one of those moments that I had convinced myself that I would be just fine because I didn't have what they called the Red Devil chemo well guess what they switched me to it's one of the most toxic of the breast cancer chemos it's actually colored red and you watch them push it through your IV because they have to push it quickly they then tell you to suck on ice hoping that your mouth and esophagus won't then erupt in source your urine's even toxic for a few days but we did it one single day at a time was it a breeze no did I question so many things I did but the worst part of it all for me was the feeling that I was losing control my body was hurting and tired but I could get through that I just didn't have any mental energy I basically could stare at the wall and those days when I would start to feel normal or short-lived because it was then time for the next round I had so many people caring for me but I much prefer to be the caregiver to be in control and as I mentioned earlier to not need help because of the fear of burdening people but God continued to chip away at that for me in the meantime Agnes was healing well at home with a constant rotation of pressure dressings and that lasted a little over six weeks I finished the Red Devil and was set for surgery but I had two oncologist with differing opinions as to whether or not I needed more chemo before surgery I would be fine as long as I was finished with chemo we proceeded with the devil mastectomy and the removal of my lymph nodes only to discover there was a lot more cancer within the removed tissue so on to more chemo it was and then six weeks of radiation we moved to Houston for the six weeks of radiation tried to make it the summer of fun for our kids what's that book I City Mouse country mouse something along that one day I found my seven-year-old daughter at the end of our new driveway with a red Solo cup shaking it at cars as they drove by yes Sophie what are you doing and she goes I don't know just try to make a little money I've seen people do it by the Light we then found my ten-year-old son climbing the neighbor's fence going you guys been here long needless to say quickly people discovered our rural Roots but we made the best friends Agnes had a new Baseline MRI that summer our neurosurgeon wasn't pleased though because the lipoma had already grown back precluding a good vision of her spinal cord so we're now back to a wait and see with Agnes we wait to see if she has any nerve damage and we proceed from there I finished radiation and we came back to New Mexico last summer to realize the gifts of radiation keep giving as I became exhausted and my skin started to adhere to my ribs as silly as this sounds there were times I was so tired of it and could finally understand why people opted not to do treatment but I had a reason too it was soon after we returned home that I came into breakfast one morning and her nanny had our Nanny had left she left early thinking she was called to go back home so it was just us again my husband said see what we need to do in order to get the kids into public school no anything but that I had spent years convincing myself this was the right way to do things this homeschooling was how we wanted to raise our children it was all I thought I had left and I wasn't going to let go for some reason then homeschooling or the loss of the homeschooling was what I thought it I needed to cling to and cling I did I cried as I imagined sending my babies off to school I wondered what those who I had convinced to homeschool would now think I felt as if I was giving up to anyone who would ask it wasn't my doing my husband had said the words and I was just trying to let him lead the family but I wanted no part of it but God knew as he always does I needed to stop making Idols of everything else in my life I needed to let go I wasn't the perfect wife I wasn't the perfect mom I wasn't the perfect sibling friend teacher anything and there was nothing I could do in order to get there I had prided myself on being the very best I could I had loved having baby after baby and prayed I would never have to come to the decision on my own as to when to stop I was fine without help I had convinced myself that in order to be open to life I had to be able to handle handle it all on my own so that no one would rightly be able to say wow wow look how responsible she is I didn't want God to have to worry about me you know where that finally landed me in a position to where I had to be brought to my breaking point to finally see that I had it all all wrong sure it's wonderful and even biblical to be open to life but I had made that my idol then I made motherhood and the right way of doing motherhood my idol then my children then my choice of schooling than the love of others and then the perfectionism that encompassed it all as I mentioned earlier others asked me all the time how I did it all maybe I did it all so that they could ask me that it wasn't ever that I didn't need God I knew he was constantly there and I never doubted his love for me I just didn't trust him let me say that again I didn't trust God but I didn't know that I didn't until I reached that breaking point in 2020. I was afraid of disappointing him and I don't know so instead of fully surrendering myself my husband my vocation my children and my entire life to him I opted for control hoping to make myself presentable to him and praying all along he would break me and use me for his will and finally he did my children went to school taking care of them I went on to have a complete hysterectomy answering the question of whether or not I'd have more babies I'm still on an oral chemo for another six months I've had a revision surgery to try to increase my range of motion on my right side I recently lost my very best childhood friend and Agnes has somewhat of a cosmetic surgery coming up in the next six months but her life will be a constant game of wait and see she's walking it's a miracle and she's constantly filling our lives with so much joy I will never be the person I was before cancer I don't have the mental capacity to do it all heck I can't even think of the right words to use I don't have the physical capacity to get through the daily tasks I did just two years ago my doctors tell me the wear and tear in my body after the last two years makes my body actually 20 to 30 years older than I am some days I long for who I was before but I'm quickly reminded that that is not who God wants me to be he wants me to be a saint and as far from that as I am I desperately want it to he wants it for all of us but if you're like me there is something or some things that you are holding on to preventing him from molding you to be exactly who he wants you to be that grip we have on that one thing or another is the false sense of control that each of us has over our own lives it's taken me a lifetime to find beauty in the loss of that control and if I'm honest it took God prying it out of my very hands but here I am and the only reason I am is because I've turned it all over to him let me rephrase that I choose to turn it over to him day by day hour by hour minute by minute still each little worry each future fear each wrong step it doesn't come easy to me and sometimes it requires him throwing a glitch in the road before the Lord broke me and made me new I listened to a podcast that spoke straight to my heart you might have heard a little bit about it yesterday but it was in my speech so I decided not to take it out it was when a father Ricardos and while I can't remember at that particular time if he was talking about anxiety or suffering he was speaking about the time in the gospels where Jesus was asleep on the boat in the middle of the storm and his apostles were astonished by his asleep by his sleeping putting himself in the place of Jesus father Ricardo then said you don't think there can be any kind of peace except for the Peace of me calming the storm right now you don't know that it's enough for me to be in the boat with you even if I don't calm the storm even if the Thunder keeps coming even if the boat keeps getting wet even if the lightning keeps lighting up the sky you don't know who I am the only piece that you know is the peace that comes from no conflict but my peace is infinitely better than that my peace comes in the middle of disasters I might calm the storm I might not regardless be at peace he might calm the storm he might not regardless be at peace my disaster most recently came in the form of cancer in a sick child he may never calm that storm you may have cancer too your child may have cancer you may have a cancer in the form of a disease maybe it's an addiction maybe it's a wayward child or the loss of a child maybe it's infertility maybe it's a broken relationship maybe it's loneliness or the loss of a loved one or the inability to let something go and he may never calm that story but can you weather the storm knowing he's right there in the boat with you knowing he will never leave you knowing he is in control you can and you must because there is Beauty in losing control there is Beauty in seeing exactly what can happen when your life is out of your hands there's Beauty in seeing how God plans to use your life and your storms and your cancer to bring you to sanctity he doesn't want your perfection he doesn't want you only when you're presentable he wants all of you all of the time losing control doesn't mean sitting idly by as your life moves on without you it means surrendering your will to his and in prayer taking the next right step Moment by moment is it easy not at all if it were we'd all be Saints right now does it ever become second nature I don't know I'm so far from that but I truly believe it is only through these storms through these cancers through our sufferings that we come to terms with our great need for God it is only through suffering that we throw up our hands and Proclaim I can't do it and then the realization hits we can't we never could but he can so if your goal in life is to be a saint if it's to follow closely after him be prepared he will get your attention using whatever he must he will use whatever cancer is invading your life to rid you of control and in that when you completely give it to him you will watch and find an immense Beauty in letting God do what he always has promised us he would take care of it all you will finally allow him to write your story you will see peace in the middle of that storm only by losing your control will you allow him the space to use your cross to bring Beauty into this broken world because he will and I promise you it will be better than anything you and I could ever do alone so let it go lose control and watch his Beauty overtake you take you [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Word on Fire Institute

Views: 97,663

Keywords: bishop barron, bishop robert barron, word on fire, word on fire catholic ministries, good news conference, corporate travel, good news conference 2022, good news, catholic speaker, catholic talk, catholic conference, catholic, trust, trust the Lord, mother, mother of 8, surrender, surrender it all, cancer, sickness, suffering, disabilities, babies, families, catholic families, cancer survivor, cancer survivor christian, cancer survivor catholic, trust in God, catholic saint, sainthood

Id: UN1siMi5Y3g

Length: 42min 54sec (2574 seconds)

Published: Tue Apr 11 2023