Here’s the Scene:
I’m in Sri Lanka at surf ministry. The church we found is trying to reach out to the teenage boys in the area so they have some surfboards and take time to teach them. W have spent the morning learning how to surf. I’ve taken a break and am watching my teammates practice. Christa is sooo close to standing up, and I am so excited.
I run out into the water to celebrate, since it’s hard work to stand up, and then POP! My ankle rolls and down I fall. Anna helps me to the beach, some workers from a nearby bar get me some ice while my ankle begins looking like it ingested a tennis ball.
I’m trying to not cry so I don’t freak out our hosts and my team, and then the thought hits me: How am I going to do the World Race when I can’t walk??
The World Race is not a place where you can get away with driving places. Ain’t nobody got budget for that. We walk a lot of the time. To ministry. To the grocery store. To the bus. To get to the kitchen that’s on the other side of the guesthouse. Everywhere. And on travel days, you walk with your entire life on your back. So when I got a sprained ankle, I knew that things were about to get a whole lot harder.
This has been the worst injury I’ve ever had before. And I knew from my background that this wasn’t a little sprain. It was a pretty significant one. And all the ways you let it heal are practically impossible to do on the World Race. Ice doesn’t exist, you can’t really rest, and finding great compression and support is not as easy as dropping into a Walmart.
So my ankle would get a little better and then a travel day would happen, and I would be back to square one. Everyone would go out and about, and I would have to stay back, alone, with little access to any amenities. But even in all of this physical pain and mental frustration, God was at work and what the devil tried to use to frustrate me and take me out of the World Race journey, God transformed it to bring me deeper to Him. I am honestly grateful for my sprained ankle because of everything God did through it.
LET PEOPLE CARE FOR YOU
When I first sprained my ankle, we still had to walk to get home. My teammates carried my backpack, then carried me, and got me food. They even got tuk-tuks the next few days so that I could go eat with them.
Then we switched teams, and I was so nervous because I didn’t want to start off a new team being the crippled girl that limited everyone else. But where my last team left off in taking care of me and being considerate, my new team picked it up and blew me away. They refused to let me walk when possible. They found ice! They carried my big bag (which is 50lbs). They helped me make a plan to finally let my ankle heal.
I haven’t had the best track record with trusting people or having people in my life that want to take care of me without wanting anything in return.
This was lesson #1 God wanted me to learn:
let people take care of you.
I take care of people. It was literally my job back home. I find joy and am passionate about helping people achieve their goals. But rarely do I ask for or receive help. I never felt worthy of it. Why should I burden someone else’s life because I can’t do something for myself?
This is a lie from the devil, and God had to literally make it impossible to survive on my own in order to show me that.
My team was so generous and thoughtful. They cared about me, not for what I could offer, but just because they loved me. They wanted me to succeed and thrive just like I wanted to see that for them. We are not meant to live out of community, and we must be willing to let others in and make ourselves vulnerable in order to truly experience community. And if we don’t, God will make it happen. I’m just stubborn enough that it took a sprained ankle for me to learn.
MAKE INTERCESSION A PRIORITY
Getting ready for ministry in Myanmar, I felt like God was going to have me focus on intercession and learning about how to utilize the gift of intercession. My ankle was very bad, and I knew I wasn’t going to be able to participate in regular ministry. But then, my ankle begin to heal. And on a travel day, I began to think that maybe I could be a part of ministry. WRONG!
Not even an hour later, I had a reflex twitch and slammed my foot onto the ground, instantly swelling my ankle back up.
God had been telling me what he wanted for the next month, and I was going to completely ignore Him because I wanted to do what I thought I should do as a racer. He was not going to have that. So when we got to our host in Myanmar, I spent almost the entire time in our room, on the floor, elevating my ankle and resting it. And in that time, I began to learn God’s heart of intercession.
Intercession is the praying that the Bible talks about that brings you closer to God, that reveals His heart to us, and that moves mountains in this world. It is a powerful tool and discipline that we generally push to the side. It is something I have done for specific events or prayer requests, but I readily admit I didn’t know what it looked like in the long term.
I knew this is what God wanted from me in this season of immobility.
And there was lesson # 2 God wanted me to learn:
make intercession a priority.
So whenever my team was at ministry, I was reading about intercession or interceding on their behalf. I was talking to God and covering our teams and hosts in prayer. I knew that this was an opportunity that most people, even World Racers, don’t get, and I wanted to take full advantage of it.
So when you sprain your ankle on the world race, or break your leg, or throw up every five minutes, or spend more time being sick than you ever would at home, it’s ok. It’s not the end of the world. You have not failed at your mission or purpose. Maybe God’s trying to show you something or give you time to rest.
And if you think this lesson is only for World Racers, you’re wrong. We can push aside God’s plans in our day-to-day lives in America just like we can do it on a packed World Race journey. Stop and pay attention because God is in everything.
Even in sprained ankles.
