Sophomore year of high school, I went into the doctor with my mother for a normal wellness checkup. My doctor did the test where you bend over to touch your toes, and the physician looks at your spine. As he examined, he noticed a slight curve, so he recommended getting an xray straight away. We went directly after to get the xray, and found out that I had severe scoliosis, curvature of the spine.
This degraded my confidence and caused me to doubt God’s existence for one, but also His ability to heal if He did exist. I have grown up into a family full of pastors, my dad, my uncles, my grandparents. They always discussed God and what He was doing, but I never felt like I was experiencing myself. Hurts from my family had the opposite effect on my faith. Instead of lighting it ablaze, I shut myself off towards everyone, including God.
From my back issues fears, many other concerns with other internal organs arose: my ovaries and heart were at risk from being pressed on by my spine. One by one the Lord healed those worries, however, I did not see those miracles as the Lord’s work. I saw them as coincidences or gradual wellness because of something I did.
At this point, I had to wear a hard back brace because my back was progressing rapidly. It was in the shape of an S with curvature of about 50 degrees over 55 degrees. After many months in the brace and intensive ballet training, my specialist took an xray of my spine to see the progression, and she informed me that it had not moved at all since the last appointment. God had held my spine in place, so I would no longer need a back brace.
Fast forward to world race launch in September, that was the first time it resonated with me that the Lord could straighten my spine. A teammate of mine, Steph, had a dream about this very thing. In the dream, she was in the NICU at the hospital. She was sitting with God looking at one baby; a baby with scoliosis. Steph was worried and sad for the baby then God said, “Don’t worry I am going to fix it.” Steph said, “But won’t that hurt really bad?” God repeated, “Don’t worry I am going to fix it.”
Once in Ethiopia the Lord started reminding me of everything He said about my healing months earlier. I started praying about it, but I also told my squad mates. When we are struggling, the enemy tries to isolate us from people who want to fight for us. It is so important to let people into our problems. Anyway, through prayer, I realized my physical healing was tied to a lot of spiritual and emotional healing that needed to occur first. I did not know this, a lot of our physical needs are tied to something spiritual. For me, this meant going through my past: one of fear, shame, and pride. This was painful because there were a lot of things I did not want God to touch, or I was not ready to let go of. After about 2 months of inner healing, the squad had a healing night. During worship, anyone who wanted healing for something physical but also emotional or spiritual, would get prayer.
I was scared of the healing being painful, or embarrassing like i’d be rolling around on the ground or something crazy. After a while, the Lord gave my courage to raise my hand on our squad healing night and ask for healing. The Lord blesses boldness; if you need healing, be bold and ask for it! It seemed that the squad was waiting for me to ask, because they were excited and ready for God to move. They were smiling and clapping. Your closest community should be like this: ecstatic and honored to fight alongside you in your battles, constantly pointing you to Jesus.
Everyone laid hands on me and prayed. After they prayed, I ran to the bathroom to see if there was a change in my spine. Nothing had happened, and I became upset. God why did you want me to ask for prayer if you weren’t going to heal me? He asked me to go get prayer again but to lay on the floor this time. I went back out, and I asked everyone to lay hands again. Once again I went to the bathroom and looked, nothing. I started crying, confused and upset. In that moment I had a massive heart change. I started praising the Lord right there in the bathroom, praying in thanksgiving. Then I laid hands on my own back and prayed for myself. I felt my spine from the top all the way to the bottom. I felt from my tailbone up 5 vertebra, and stopped. They were straight. Yes, my tailbone up 5 vertebrae had been straightened by the Lord. I ran and got a teammate to have them check, she confirmed: yes that part was straight.
This was the craziest thing I have ever experienced. God said He wasn’t finished with me yet!
Something He taught me at the Awakening in Costa Rica, was something I have been told for years and years. My grandma would pray for me and would always end it by saying, “You’re already healed Moriah Lacey!” I’d say okay grammia thank you, but in the back of my head think, “I’m not healed… My back is not straight, and I still have pain.” In one worship session, God gave me a vision of me in Heaven with Jesus. I was walking around with Him in a field, with a straight spine. He reminded me of how time is not a concept in Heaven; earthly hours minutes seconds do not exist with God. When I accepted Jesus into my heart, I became a child of God, and was given a home in Heaven. I am already living heaven completely healed. When we pray and ask God for healing, it is like a piece of heaven comes to Earth. He will do it in His timing, when it’s the best possible situation for me and the people around me.
The healing taking place in my emotional and physical body constantly solidifies that God is loving and good. That does not mean I don’t struggle. I went through a gigantic season of doubting God in Ethiopia, and this caused me to feel so much guilt, and guilt does not come from the Lord. Why did I have so much doubt after experiencing Papa in such a miraculous way? Am I the worst daughter ever?? God told me that in that season He was digging up layers and layers of doubt, tearing it up from its roots, from where it began in my past. I thought I had dealt with my past long ago, but it went much deeper than I had thought. My leader gave me the perfect imagery to describe this process. Earlier in the race, I had cut off a few branches from my tree of doubt, it helped, but it continued to live and grow. What God needed to do, was dig a hole and pull the whole tree out from the roots. After that He planted a deep seed of faith. This seed of faith would start off small and would grow until it started producing healthy fruit of its own.
God taught me through this that it is completely okay to struggle. He walks me through hard seasons of life, seasons of physical pain fear and doubt, to allow me to grow in my relationship with Him. These battles grow more intimacy and allow me to relate to people around me. Embrace hard battles! God deems you worthy and strong enough to go “suffer for the Gospel”, but not alone; WITH Him. I do not need to strive to find His love, Papa and His goodness are chasing after me.
All this to say: I am so thankful to struggle. How was I chosen to grow closer to the heavenly father? We all are chosen to grow closer to Him!!!! My prayers have changed solely to thanksgiving, to look more like Jesus, and for my eyes and ears to be opened to see God. Not for Him to move, but for me to see it around me.
None of this journey would be as effective if I didn’t know how to hear Papa’s voice. Guess what my next blog will about? How to hear the Lord’s voice!!! This is probably the most important skill I have ever learned, and will ever learn.
If you doubt God’s existence, if you doubt He can and wants to communicate with you, TRY IT. What do you have to lose? He promises us that if we seek Him, we will find Him. Just try it! There is no shame in doubt, God is just walking you through something, whether you realize it or not. And boy, when you get the other side, I cannot express the love that He will pour into you, a love that will start to pour out of you like never before.
This blog is only part 1 because I believe Papa is not finished with me yet! So I am expectant to write a part 2!!!! Thank you all in supporting me and reading my blogs. I love you all so much, and am in constant prayer for everyone who reads these 🙂
God is sitting right next to you, with a glowing hand over your heart. He knows and feels your pain. Don’t lose courage, He is fighting for you 🙂
