This week I went to World Race training camp where I camped out in the woods with the incredible family that I’ll be living with for the next year, laughed with them during team-building activities, ate some fish head soup and other texturally disgusting foods, and didn’t get nearly enough sleep.
I woke up on Sunday morning with my eye in pain. It was watering, a nasty blood red color and excruciating to close. A girl on my squad with medical training examined my eye, told me that I had a scratched cornea and that the only thing I could do was put a patch on it and wait a week for it to heal.
Side note: It is incredibly frustrating to be in the middle of the woods with only one eye and I was miserable.
Noticing my misery, two of my brothers on my squad, Michael and Eddie, came over to me and prayed for my eye to get healed. And it felt better for a while…but then the pain came back. As a skeptic, I was thankful for the prayer but simply accepted the fact that I was going to have to look like a pirate for the week. But then, the next day my eye went back to excruciating pain and my brothers once again gathered around and prayed for healing. This time I was able to take off the patch and it was completely healed!
Sometimes I give up on God’s plans and just accept them as that but God didn’t give up on me. He knew that my eye was to be healed and pursued that until it was!
And not only did my eye get healed but my teammate Jacob had his hearing restored and no longer needs hearing aids! (check out the video below!)
And ours aren’t the only stories of healing. Many of my teammates experienced God’s healing power as back problems, Celiac’s disease, and stomach pains suddenly left! God is so awesome!
But the coolest thing about God as Healer is that He doesn’t just heal our physical ailments, He also heals our hearts from past wounds that can emotionally scar us for life.
One night, we listened to a sermon about grieving properly. I immediately wanted to leave because the hardest thing I struggle with is vulnerability and there was no way I was going to cry in front of people.
Nope. Bawled like a baby. Which was completely fine because I was able to release years of grief from my father’s death eight years ago and I had been wanting nothing more to let it out.
That has literally been the most freeing thing I’ve ever experienced.
No longer did I have to mourn because I realized that I’m a beautiful daughter of God and nothing will ever change that.
No longer did I want to distract other people from my pain because I realized that my stories bring redemption for other people and glory to God.
And most importantly, I learned that not only does God love me, but He likes me!
