Redeeming My Limits - Part 1

At this point five years ago, I was preparing to go on my first international mission trip. The team of students from my college was meeting regularly to plan and pray for our early March trip to Puebla, Mexico. After years of reading missionary stories and dreaming of where I would go as soon as I had the chance, it was finally here! I was thrilled. Then, just weeks before we were slated to leave, my life hit a sudden and unexpected speed bump.

I was a fairly active and healthy twenty-something. But, the morning after an intramural basketball game, I woke up and knew that something was very wrong. What had been occasional back pain had suddenly flared into a blinding pain that I could not escape. After a miraculously fast MRI, I went to see the sports medicine specialist who had just opened a clinic on campus that month (another miracle). He started to give me a lecture on how some people just suffer from chronic back pain and I asked him if he had looked at my MRI. He left the room to do so and returned wide eyed. "You're in a lot of pain, aren't you?" It was all I could do to not roll my eyes and groan. "Yes, I am," I answered. "You have the back of a forty year-old steel worker," he replied and proceeded to tell me that I had two herniated discs in the lumbar region of my spine.

There was no good explanation for why the discs were herniated, they just were. And that meant major and immediate lifestyle changes for me. No lifting anything over five pounds (my laptop at the time weighed more than that), no sitting for more than twenty minutes at a time (yes, professor, I will be standing up at regular intervals during your class) and, if you make this any worse, you may lose function below the waist (ie, if walking is important to you, you'd better follow instructions). The next week was a blur of coping with pain, barely managing to get through classes, learning how to do homework while flat on my back and discovering that my body did not like the steroids the doctor prescribed to bring down the swelling (oh, and since your blood pressure has shot through the roof, make sure you don't do anything that raises your pulse).

Exhausted, frustrated and scared, I prayed with my team that God would heal me and intervene to somehow allow me to still take the trip to Mexico. The doctor indulgently gave me a week to see what would happen and then gave me a firm "no way." The risk of further injury without access to good medical care was too much - and besides, the plane ride would be pure torture as I still could not sit comfortably. And so, they went without me. I was heartbroken. However, life had suddenly become so painful and complicated that I did not have the strength to deal with it in the moment. So, I gave the pieces to God and asked Him to hold them for me. Quietly and gently He assured me that He was not just holding the pieces, but was holding me as well. He knew my pain (Isaiah 53:4).


After several months of strict limits, NSAIDs and physical therapy, the pain gradually subsided and it became apparent that I would retain the use of my legs and lead at least a semi-normal life.  God was answering my prayer for healing, albeit much more slowly and less dramatically that I would have preferred. It also became apparent that the road to recovery would be a long, slow one with many changes and lasting limitations. Many of my plans - including my dream of international mission work - were put on hold indefinitely as I worked to get better and wondered how much better I would get.

Complete surrender is never easy, but when you're literally flat on your back, you don't have much choice in the matter. God has used that extremely painful time in my life to significantly redirect my path and draw me closer to Him. Over the last five years, He has not only "taken away" (Job 1:21) but also given me more than I could dream. Daily, He is working things together for good as only He can (Romans 8:28). He is redeeming my limits (more on this later). And, in that neat way that only a loving Father can, He has brought many of my dreams full circle in ways that I never expected...

At this point, five years later, I'm preparing to go on my first international mission trip. In February, I will be traveling as a part of a team of volunteers with Samaritan's Purse to Ecuador. We will be part of an on-going effort to help build a structure for a local church that currently meets in three homes. And though I'm not the most obvious choice for a construction trip, God has opened the door for me to serve in some auxiliary ways, including doing after-school Bible story and song time with some of the children (so fun!). Stay tuned for more details and stories of how God continues to redeem my limits for His glory.


To be continued...