The Soul Minimalist

The Soul Minimalist

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The Soul Minimalist
The Soul Minimalist
Life With God is an Imperfect Circle

Life With God is an Imperfect Circle

A mammogram, a labyrinth, and a repetitive hope

Emily P. Freeman's avatar
Emily P. Freeman
Oct 18, 2023
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The Soul Minimalist
The Soul Minimalist
Life With God is an Imperfect Circle
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Hello to you! The Soul Minimalist is a reader supported publication that allows me to offer The Next Right Thing podcast ad-free. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. And to anyone who would like to support the scholarship fund for those who are unable to afford it, you can subscribe as a Founding Member. To learn more about scholarships, read more here.

I sit in the tiny waiting room at The Breast Center waiting for my mammogram and decide to do my daily delete on my phone while I wait.

I type in the date—September 29— and wait to see what photos will pop up from the last ten years.

A sampling of photos taken on September 29 over the years.

Yes, that is baby Emily in the bottom right corner but that’s not what catches my eye. Instead, I’m drawn to the photo on the top left, the mirror reflecting the drawing of a girl.

That photo was taken on September 29, 2014.

As I sit in this hospital shirt in the small single-person waiting room, holding my phone in my hands, I slowly look up at the wall in front of me in real time and see this:

Again, I look down at my phone with the photo from September 29, 2014.

Then back up at the wall in front of me, on the same day now in 2023.

Down, up.

Down, up.

Here I am, nine years later on the exact same calendar date, in the exact same office (though a different waiting cubicle), waiting for a mammogram.

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