Hi friends!
Recently, I've written a little about some of the thoughts I have going into the race, and a lot about some of the things God has been teaching me recently.
Today I thought I'd get a little more personal and tell you about my life.
Back in October, I broke my wrist. It was a huge ordeal. I’m left handed, and I broke my left wrist two months before I was supposed to graduate with an English degree. My last two months of university were spent unable to write anything, essays, tests, signatures on receipts, autographs (kidding, kidding). I had to relearn everything, and looking back, I already recognize things that the Lord taught me through this time.
The first thing is about healing. I don’t know what you believe about healing, or in what context you’ve experienced it happen, but I can promise you that divine, miraculous healing is for today and is for followers, cynics, and everything in between. It is a gift God gave to further His Kingdom and exemplify His love. And I’ve grown to expect it. Healing is an avenue to experience God’s love and propel us into greater worship with Him. Last year, I started to see healings on a weekly basis (everything from food allergies to tinnitus to scoliosis). Sometimes they were instantaneous, sometimes they took a few minutes of prayer, sometimes it was gradual as we worshipped, and sometimes it was gradual over the course of a few days. In every case, though, the supernatural had begun becoming the natural and the miraculous had become the expected. This is awesome. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
When I broke my wrist, I fell 6 feet and landed on both wrists and my left knee. All felt equally broken. It was excruciating pain. People prayed, and immediately pain left the right wrist and left knee. I was so encouraged! I went to the doctor and he told me my left scaphoid had broken into two pieces and because no blood flow reached the broken piece of bone, there was only a slim chance it would heal at all without surgery, which I couldn’t afford. I said I’d take my chances.
I kept praying, kept believing, kept trying all the things I had seen work in the past. Eventually, I gave up on it. It was hard to keep asking and keep being disappointed. Then God spoke to me. I realized how blessed I was not to have two full arm casts and a leg cast. I’d be in a wheelchair, unable to wheel myself. I’d be totally out of commission! Praise the Lord that He touched the other two injuries. My heart melted to a place of worship. I realized that I can’t pray enough, do enough or believe enough to earn a healing. If I could, that’d be witchcraft (manipulating and controlling power through words or action). Healing comes by grace! I can rest! I visited Cait Evangelista and Caleb Ostby in Pennsylvania and went to Voice of the Apostles, a conference at their school. It was wonderful. Some of my inspirations were there (Georgian Banov, Heidi Baker, Che Ahn, Bill Johnson, John Arnott, Will Hart, and Randy Clark). Martin Smith and Jesus Culture led worship. Jesus did so much in my heart. I saw probably 3000 healings that week. I had started growing discouraged about my arm. I still had a cast up to my shoulder for a tiny bone in my wrist. I asked the Lord on the drive up for a sign of His presence. I just needed Him to remind me that it was in His hands. During a worship session, someone on the ministry team had a Word of Knowledge that someone there had a broken left wrist that was causing problems because of university pressure. I was the only one out of 6000 who this applied to. I went up to talk with her. She was a missionary to China that was home on furlow. She told me how God had really clearly told her that He was healing this wrist in His timing, not mine. Then she told me that she was being encouraged by the calling to missions that she could sense on my heart. She asked me my name, and when I said Caleb, she started to cry. She had just adopted a boy in China and God told her that his name would be Caleb, and that he would be called to the nations. What a blessing! What a confirmation! Jesus is so good!
I started to rest. I started to pray for people. I’d laugh as I’d pray for someone to be healed, laying my cast arm on them. Jesus would show up! They’d be healed. His strength made perfect in my weakness.
This monday I went to the doctor again. He told me that it was remarkable how quickly and fully my wrist was healed. They expected me to be in a cast until the end of February. (And then they expected to have to do surgery to take out the rotten bone). Instead, he told me that my bone was 100% healed, and that there was no sign of it ever being broken. God really does redeem! He restores! He heals! It just doesn’t always look the way I expect it. And here is the best part: I had gotten so used to miraculous healing, that I forgot how miraculous it was. I now understand how fragile our bodies are, how long it takes them to heal naturally, and how incredible it is that God shows Himself in this way. I praise Him so much for having better plans than me. He didn’t break it, but He made it better than it was before!
I also mentioned how I had to relearn things, using my right hand. This was a season of relearning, spiritually as well. God took me back to the basics (love, grace, Gospel) and rebuilt the foundations, where they’d been cracked by years of relying on the wrong supports. Ask God what you need to relearn. Then be teachable as He answers your prayer. It is a beautiful thing.
In Christ,
Caleb
