I’ve
been off the Race for a month now, and it’s been two months since my last blog.
I keep telling myself to write one of those “What’s Next” blogs that serve to
let everyone know what I’m up to now that I’m back from the World Race and my
life is much less exciting. (For those who care, my tri-weekly Chick-fil-A
visits are the highlight of my now much slower-paced schedule.) I’ll likely
write one of those soon, but this is not that blog. This is a story about how God
showed up in a huge way in my life post-Race.
This story
starts in Ecuador, nearly a year ago.
It
was two weeks into Month One of my Race in Huaticocha, Ecuador. It was not my
best month, to say the least. I was still figuring things out, trying to do
things on my own, and not always listening to wise counsel. Two days into the Race
I got robbed in Quito, and my next race-altering incident occurred in the dense
jungle not two weeks later.
My
teammate, Glenn, and I had decided to go on a hiking “manventure” with one of
our little Ecuadorian friends. I’ll sum the story up, but I basically fell off of a 60-foot-tall waterfall, landed
in the river below, suffered some pretty nasty cuts, and smashed my left knee
on a rock on the way down. It was swollen for a few weeks, and when I got back
to Quito I had an MRI done on it to confirm that I had a torn ACL.
I’ve
torn both my ACLs previously in high school and college, and this was just as
painful, if not worse. For those of you that don’t know, once an ACL is torn,
it requires arthroscopic surgery to be fixed, as it is impossible for it to
naturally fix itself. But, once it is torn, it is torn, and the risk of
reinjuring it is not too high, assuming I learned my lesson and stopped falling
off waterfalls.
After
talking to my surgeon back home, my parents, squad leaders, and spending a lot
of time in prayer, I decided to stay on the Race. God just wasn’t done with me
yet. I stayed and continued to Peru with complete confidence that God would
protect me and that his purpose would be fulfilled for me. I knew I wasn’t
supposed to go home. I planned to have surgery when I got back to the States in
a year.
The
next 10 ½ months were injury free, thankfully, and my team and others on my
squad spent significant time praying for healing for my knee. We saw no change
in my knee, but we believed in God’s ability and to heal me and prayed
expectantly for it to happen.
It’s crazy
how God used the knee injury on the Race for good and to fulfill his purpose
for me and those around me.
I’ve
always been athletic, and sports have been my go-to form of ministry and
interaction with kids on the field. God took this away from me, and I learned
so much about doing ministry aside from sports, whether it was sitting on the
sidelines and playing with toddlers, or sharing with an onlooker who was also
unable to play. The opportunities I would never have had to impact someone’s
life seemed to happen all the time as God placed different people in my path. I
learned so much about being relational, meeting people where they are, and
letting go of what I see as my strengths in order to serve His greater
purpose.
I
returned home in June, and the following week went to the orthopedic surgeon to
have my knee looked at again. Yup, it was still torn. The doctor felt my knee, looked
at the MRI, and confirmed as much. However, he suggested another MRI be taken
since the previous one was a year old (having been taken in Ecuador). Two weeks
later I went back to have the MRI, and then I went back two days after that to
get the results. I had cleared my schedule for the following week, ready to
have surgery once I confirmed again that the ACL was torn.
Here’s
the conversation I had with the surgeon:
Surgeon: “Steven, how are you? How is the knee feeling?”
Me: “It’s been doing pretty well, honestly it hasn’t bothered me a
whole lot. I haven’t tried to play sports or anything though since I hurt it.”
Surgeon: “Well, are you still planning on having surgery next
week?”
Me: “Yes sir, I want to get it done as soon as possible so I can
get done with the recovery sooner.”
Surgeon: “Well, after looking at your new MRI…umm, I can’t exactly
explain this, but your knee looks fine. Your ACL is completely healed. You
don’t need surgery anymore.”
Me: “Whaaaaaat!”
At
this point my jaw had pretty much dropped to the floor. I was shocked. There
must be a mistake…or had God healed me? Ever the skeptic, I needed to ask more
questions.
Me: “Sir, do you have an explanation for this?”
Surgeon: “Umm…well, no. It is medically impossible for the knee to
heal itself. There is no blood flow to the ligament. My only thought was that
maybe the image wasn’t…maybe it wasn’t clear the first time. I thought I had
the wrong knee, to be perfectly honest. As far as I’m concerned, you could walk out of here and go play basketball right now.”
And
at this point I interrupted him, needing no more.
“I’ve been praying for this knee to be healed for a year. Sir, that was God!”
I know a
miracle when I see one.
God
healed my knee. There is no other explanation. God is still alive and moving
yesterday, today, and tomorrow. I went to the gym last week and did one of my
favorite things in the world – I played full court basketball for two and a
half hours for the first time in a year.
It’s
funny because after I got home from the Race I felt myself almost give up on
God healing my knee. I had prayed for the knee for 11 months, and nothing
happened. I was on the World Race–wasn’t this where miracles were supposed to
happen? Maybe they only happened to other people. To little kids in the African
bush or to a woman dying of cancer in Cambodia. Not to me, right? Wrong.
God
did not need to heal me. I could have had surgery and recovered in due time,
but God chose to heal me. For me, this is an incredible reminder of his
continued faithfulness in my life. Whoever is reading this, I encourage you to
continue to believe that God is active and moving in your life and wants the
best for you. He isn’t done with you yet.
Pray without
ceasing. Pray expecting God to show up. He does.
