Hey friends, the story I am about to tell you might get long but bear with me. This is a story I am really excited to tell. This story starts eleven years ago when I was 8.
At the age of 8 I was diagnosed with scoliosis. If you dint know what that is it is a curvature of the spine. It is different for everyone, some people have it and have no pain from it and some have it so bad that they have to have surgery. I was somewhere in the middle of those two I was fortunate enough to not have it to the extent where I would need surgery. For me I did have a lot of pain and discomfort from it, as a kid I had to stop doing a lot of the things kids love to do because it was just too painful, such as jumping on a trampoline. Growing up with that being something that held me back a lot of times from enjoying activities most people could do without even thinking about it I started finding a lot of identity in it. I didn’t think it was a good identity to have but that’s what I thought made me who I was, the girl who couldn’t do a lot of things or the girl with the messed up back. That was something I didn’t even realize I struggled with until my mom brought to my attention, I worked on that not being my identity but it did happen to be a big part of who I was.
Over the years I had people pray over me for healing but I never really believed I could be healed. I never saw it as something God would or could free me from. I would pray for the pain to go away but I was never brave enough to personally pray for the issue to go away. I didn’t want to get my hopes up that it would happen when I didn’t believe it could. In doing so I put God in a box I told him this was something He didn’t have control of. I never really gave him a chance to prove me wrong.
Flash forward to when I was signing up for the race, my mom’s biggest concern for me going on the race was my back. Before the race I had to go to the chiropractor once a week or every other week so knowing that I wouldn’t have access to a chiropractor was big and scary. I told her that I knew I would hurt and I knew that I was going to be in pain but that if I was supposed to go on the race that God would take care of me. The three months leading up to launching the Lord allowed me to be without the usual pain and problems my back gave me. I was convinced He was going to take away that pain for the whole race, which ended up not being the case. The beginning of my journey on the race was bumpy and painful. I would go to ministry and push myself WAY past what I knew my limits were then end up having to lay in bed in tears from the pain and discomfort.
Since the first month my back has been giving me regular issues, I really had to watch how much I did so I wouldn’t end up like I was the first month. I wasn’t allowed to carry my pack on any of my travel days since traveling to Malaysia. Since being in Costa Rica I have been having some pretty intense pain to the point where I had to go to the physical therapist before debrief.
A couple people came back from their ministries last month healed. I was jealous and angry at God because I wanted to be healed so badly, I was happy for the people who had been healed but I was still jealous. I wanted it to be my turn and God kept telling me not yet. The squad prayed over me for healing but I knew it wasn’t time yet. Then the second night of debrief we had silent worship and in that time the Lord reveled to me that my back was my thorn in my side like Paul had. Paul dealt with his thorn for most of his Christian life and God never took it away. So I started to come to terms with the fact that this was my thorn.
The next morning we had silent Sabbath, one of our coaches Kendra challenged us to pray our biggest bravest prayer in that time of silence. I knew that my biggest bravest prayer was my back getting healed but I thought I had gotten my answer from the Lord on that matter so I went into the silent Sabbath not knowing what God and I were going to talk about. So I made my way up to a rock I had found the previous day that was on one of the highest points of the camp we are staying at and started praying. The Lord confirmed in that time that this really was my thorn, so the acceptance started. i started writing, this is what I wrote in my journal:
“It is my thorn.
“So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then I am content with weakness, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” 2 Corinthians 12:7-10
I have a thorn in my side. That must mean God is working through me so the enemy is scared. The thorn may be temporary or it may be there till the day I die but either way your grace is sufficient. The fact that your grace covers my sins and my failures is enough for me.
“Therefore since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Romans 5:1-5
“Therefore the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you. For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him. For a people shall dwell in Zion, in Jerusalem; you shall weep no more. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as he hears it, he answers you. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, “This is the way, walk in it” when you turn to the right or to the left.” Isaiah 30:18-21
“Likewise the spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words. And he who searches hearts know what is the mind of the spirit, because the spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of the God. And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:26-28
“But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts.” Malachi 4:2-3
This last verse gives me hope in its promise for healing someday. A promise that the Lord will act someday and on that day I will be leaping with joy.”
As I finished writing this in my journal one of my squadmates (who was one of the people who had been healed a week prior) came up to me and told me God told her that it was my turn. I asked what she meant and she said he said it was my turn to be healed. I was stunned and didn’t know what to say but I said ok. A weird peace came over me and so she prayed over me and my back when she finished I sat up and didn’t feel any different so I asked her to pray again. This time as she was praying I laid there and let myself believe that God not only could heal me but would heal me. This time when I sat up the previous ever present ache that had always been in my back was gone. I stood up and was moving around testing it out, I must have looked completely crazy in that moment but I didn’t care. She asked if there was any way to test it to see if this craziness was real. I had her run her fingers down my spine to feel if it was straight or not. She ran her fingers down it the first two times and the curve to the left was still there, then she ran her fingers down my spine one more time and as she did she said she felt my spine straighten. (THAT’S CRAZY) We were in complete shock, so much so that we had to have another person feel my back to confirm that it was in fact straight. It was confirmed and I lost it, the tears came and they weren’t planning on stopping anytime soon.
So here I am the next day writing this blog still in udder shock and awe of the power of God. After 11 years of pain and little hope of it ever getting better I sit here with a straight back and a full heart.
Now I challenge you, what is your biggest bravest prayer? What is keeping you from finding the time to sit in silence with the Lord and pray for those big brave prayers? I challenge you to find time to do that because who knows maybe you’ll get an answer you never even dreamed of getting…
