Today, the day I’m writing this, December 29th (I know that’s not actually the day I’m posting this…procrastination happens), is an interesting date. One year ago today, I had just “trudged” through a difficult Christmas. I was working all the time as a graduate student studying Behavioral Neuroscience, and was in a lot (A LOT) of pain. I hurt my back in late February of 2013, and it stayed hurt pretty much up until the day I left for this World Race, but because of stress and who knows what else, it got bad. I’m talking really, really bad. It was all I could think about on the good days, and all I could do not to think about it on the bad ones. I was a good actor, most of the time, and so people probably never even knew the extent of it unless they really pried.
In my head, it was never going to get better. In my head, I was essentially disabled. The doctors didn’t know exactly what I’d done to it, and so they couldn’t offer any relief. I couldn’t work out, I couldn’t lift anything, I couldn’t run…I couldn’t do anything without the pain. At one point (…or at a few points, if I’m being honest), I decided that I didn’t ever even want to get married, the pain was so bad and, to me, felt so debilitating. I didn’t want to be anyone’s burden.
I first heard about the race in August of 2013 from a friend I knew in college. I thought it was great…for someone else. But God wouldn’t let me rest. I began to think it was something he wanted me to pursue that September.
Even still, I didn’t really, really consider applying for the race until November of 2013, and yeah, my back was still really bad then. Like, it would have been physically impossible for me to go on the race at that point—I would have never been able to carry the backpack, let alone all the traveling that goes along with a doing missions around the world.
But God wouldn’t leave me alone.
I had no peace. Here I was, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Iowa with three years of graduate school under my belt, and I felt like God was asking me to leave everything, without even the physical capacity to do it.
I started physical therapy in July of 2013. The first clinic I went to didn’t help much, so the last week of October I decided to go back to therapy at another clinic that my therapist friend had recommended.
On the 22nd of November, it was especially cold and icy in Iowa, and as I was driving to therapy, a guy spun out on the bridge ahead of me and we collided pretty much side-to-side. My car was totaled and, yeah, my back hurt. It was only a few days before thanksgiving, and it was a rough one for me. I went to work for most of the day, in a lot of pain, and then went to a good friend’s house for dinner. I was having other health problems as well, and I felt almost dead inside. I was so sick of being sick. I was starting to get bitter. I couldn’t even remember what healthy felt like. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d woken up and felt that okay. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d spent a week without going to the doctor, or to therapy. I was working constantly.
And yet, God was still on the phone. He was still calling me on this race. He was still promising me that healing would come, even though I’d already prayed for it (begged for it) a million times in a million different ways.
Finally, exhausted, in the early days of December of 2013, I told my boss that I wouldn’t be continuing grad school after the spring semester… and if I thought I’d feel better after that, I was wrong. The peace I’d wanted was nowhere to be found.
I officially applied for the race in January of 2014 for a route leaving in September of that year. And guess what? My back didn’t feel any better. And I didn’t know if I’d be able to keep walking in the faith needed to make it to September.
I sent out my first fundraising letters in late February, and my back still hurt.
I wrote my first blog on my world race website in March, and even then, nothing changed.
I remember thinking one day in early April, lying on my floor, about what I would do if God healed me right then. I remember thinking I’d burst into tears. I remember thinking that I’d want to tell everyone about what’d just happened. I remember thinking that I finally knew what it was to really suffer. That I wanted to find a way to touch and comfort those who had lived with the emotional and physical hell that I’d been through.
In May, little by little, I began to notice improvements. Small things that wouldn’t have seemed significant to anyone else. The fact that I could sit in a chair comfortably for longer than 20 minutes at a time. That I could wear a sports bra, even if it was only for an hour.
I wasn’t healed when I left for the race in this past September. I’d improved enough to leave with my squad, but there was still pain. In fact, I wasn’t even healed my first month in Panama. Or in Costa Rica. Or in Nicaragua.
But God was still speaking.
This month in Honduras, we’ve done a lot of physical labor, and it’s been our first month really doing that. We’ve wheeled a ton of dirt, dug a huge whole, mixed a bunch of concrete, played a million games of soccer, and chased kids around and around and around. A lot of the girls on my team would say their back hurt and sit down to take a break. A lot of the girls would wake up sore and hurting from all the work we’d done the previous day. But guess what?
I never did.
My back never bothered me. Not once. In fact, until people reminded me about it, I didn’t even think about it. And I didn’t burst out into tears, and I didn’t tell everyone around me about the miracle I’d just experienced.
God had done what he’d always told me he’d do, but it was done so sweetly and so subtly and throughout so many months that I almost didn’t even notice.
Today, in the very early days of 2015, I am healed. And I am on the race. And I am wheeling barrowing a crap-ton of dirt without pain. (And I also just survived a 70+ hour travel day—2 buses and 4ish plane rides—to Malaysia!]
And that, my friends, is nothing short of a miracle. They say you see miracles on the race, and we do…but sometimes we only look for a second, a minute, and then we get bored or something else catches our eye. I waited 2 years for my miracle, and if it hadn’t been happening in my own body, playing out before my very eyes where I couldn’t ignore it, I would have never even noticed.
Don’t give up on miracles. Don’t give up on being healed. Don’t give up on God. Don’t forget what he’s promised. Life might look bad—really, really bad—but keep looking. Keep watching. Keep waiting.
Because God is always worth the wait.
Look at the nations and watch– and be utterly amazed.
For I am going to do something in your days that
you would not believe, even if you were told.
Habakkuk 1:5
