A “BEAUTY FROM ASHES” STORY

When I was 22, I was told by my doctor that I likely had something called endometriosis and would struggle to have children. At the time, I was young and seemingly invincible. The news bothered me when I heard it, but it felt like a reality I could control with diet, exercise, and modern science. Besides, I had my whole life ahead of me. I was finishing my bachelor’s from the University of South Florida at the top of my class in Secondary English Education, had my own thriving business, and was about to marry my high school sweetheart in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.

But I was wrong.

In the several short months after Michael and I got married, my endometriosis started stealing from us. It stole our precious moments and opportunities. It stole my fertility, our unborn children, my youth, my health, my ability to walk… And finally, as if that wasn’t enough, it almost stole my life.

Looking over our shoulders now, there is no doubt we were guided through this dark season by the steady hands of God. And though the pain was so much I could not feel him… And though the fear was so strong I could not see him… He ultimately made himself evident in the faces of the ones we loved the most, as our community of friends, family, colleagues, and church members came around us to help us survive this season in our lives. Their love and courage are selfless acts we will never forget.

I want to be honest. There is still so much sadness here. But there is so much JOY. Somehow, despite my disease, I was able to finally give birth to our daughter in 2017—after 12 years of marriage and just before my aggressive Stage 4 Endometriosis became a grenade in my abdomen. Michael and I say we prayed her into existence—and I think we are right.

In 2020, as the world shut down from Covid, I lost my ability to walk and function for the first time. Over 12 months, it happened again and again, and I was forced to undergo three aggressive surgeries to restore my mobility. And more horrifyingly, my second surgery gave me sepsis and post-surgical complications, which brought me to the brink. I did not regain my ability to walk and function until several months after my third surgery, at which I had been bedridden on end in my own home as my family and I desperately looked for a cancer-GYN specialist in excision and separating and removing attached organs who would operate on me. That life-saving surgery happened in July of 2021 because my best friend from high school, a nurse practitioner at a major Tampa Bay hospital, pulled strings for me to be seen. It was truly an ACT OF GOD. In one whirlwind week, I was splayed on the surgeon’s table with a one-foot vertical incision through my abdomen. He took the majority of my disease. He took major organs. He took my ability to have more children. But in return, he gave me my life. And I will forever be grateful.

Unfortunately, after many months of rehab and dashed hopes, my health declined again in 2023 (forcing me to lose my job), as I awaited more major surgery with a specialist to restore my ability to walk…again. That surgery happened at the end of 2023, and I was miraculously put into remission.

Today, our daughter is a passionate, creative, quirky, tender-hearted eight-year-old, and I am finally WALKING with her and my husband through this life I nearly lost. Yes, I walk with a limp—physically and figuratively—due to functional disabilities and autoimmune disorders because of what I have endured. Yes, this makes many days more difficult than I’d like. But in my darkest hours, I found a way to survive. I decided that even though this life is full of suffering, it is STILL WORTH IT. And that love is worth more to me than pain. So, I chose love.

I promised God, lying in my bed—facing down an unknown future—that if he spared me, I would MAKE MY DAYS COUNT. So here I am, humbly laying my life open—in all its tragedy and triumph—so you might find a kernel of hope, inspiration, or faith. For whatever reason, God wasn’t ready to graduate me to Heaven. And it's my journey to learn why.

I think one of those reasons is YOU.

Welcome to this BEAUTIFUL community! I hope you sit and stay a while.

You belong here,

Kimberly