Is This the Awaited Healing?

 If you are reading this blog post, you are probably somewhat aware of the journey my family has been on with my back.

Waiting in hospital Thurs to start pre-op prep

It has been a long journey, over 10 years long. I have written other blogs about it, talking about the lessons that pain and limited ability have taught me (here’s our first entire blog on it from 2014). It has been humbling. I have always known that healing was possible and that God is able to do the miraculous. I have always readily accepted whenever anyone offered or suggested that they pray for healing for my back.

Yet over the years, immediate healing was never something that I felt pulled to pray for or to seek with urgency. Then sometime this past year, there was a change. I felt led to pray consistently for healing. So I prayed everyday and I asked the family to pray everyday. I started to see some consistent improvement and I started to wonder if God wanted to bring about healing through the persistence and slowness of trust.

Then there was a setback in February. It began with me doing something I shouldn’t. I know my back limitations and I pushed them, not because I felt like I was healed and freed to push, but because of misplaced senses of pride and relational obligation. Now, I have had many setbacks over the years, and I know the steps I take to recover. It takes time, patience and stopping normal activities. But this was different. I wasn’t improving as expected. Things got worse.

I continued to pray each day for healing, and now the thought appeared, ‘maybe I need to get worse in order to get better’. There were two accompanying possibilities. Perhaps God wanted to show His power by providing miraculous healing when it would be obvious that it was His hand doing the work, or maybe He was opening up the way to surgery.

No one wants to jump to surgery, but we have considered it more than once over the years and even talked to surgeons. But every time I started recovering from my setbacks and surgeons never wanted to do surgery if I was able to improve by other means. It didn’t seem to matter that I never fully healed, they only wanted to do surgery if pain was intense and wasn’t improving with physical therapy and medication.

Post-op meds

So even as it hasn’t been fun for the past few months, there was something strangely reassuring in the fact that I wasn’t improving. We believe all healing is a gift of God, so first we took some time to pray to make sure that God didn’t want to provide that healing without surgery, but even as we had lots of people pray, no one came telling us that they thought surgery wasn’t the way forward and even some came to us surprised that they hadn’t felt led to pray for immediate healing.

We felt a peace about coming here to mainland Africa and pursuing surgery. I had surgery on Thursday and have been resting and recovering. I am already in less pain than before surgery. So I find myself asking, “Is this it, Lord? Is this the awaited healing or will the journey continue?”

I will meet with the surgeon tomorrow to hear his thoughts on my longterm post-surgery recovery, but I have read some general recovery descriptions for this type of surgery and it talks about people eventually resuming activities with almost no restrictions (even contact sports and lifting things). After 10 years of significant restrictions, I am a little lost in that possibility and am pretty sure I would have a hard time trusting such freedom.

Our oldest is 15 years old and says she can’t really remember me not having a bad back. Could this be the beginning of a new chapter? I’m hopeful, but I also am confident that God will continue to walk with us and teach us along the way, through both pain and healing. Thanks for praying and walking with us.

Tom and family visiting island

PRAYERS ANSWERED
We all made it to Kenya safely. Megan’s surgery went well without complications. She had people and lots of prayer around her. Our island sister has not been afraid despite news of increased scrutiny. The seminar on marriage went well. The brothers in a far village had a visit from others to encourage them and pray for them. It sounds like there are some women joining their numbers, too. Tom’s family’s visit to the islands finished well.

PRAYERS REQUESTED
Pray for good health and healing. Pray that Megan’s recovery would continue and that this might be a new chapter of renewed strength and ability. Pray for the remainder of Tom’s family’s time here in Africa, enjoying safari. Pray for good health, our youngest son had some tummy troubles. Pray for our teammate as she says goodbye this week to the rest of the team and to her island neighbors and friends of 5+ years. Pray for our island brothers and sisters that they would not become weary, but would persevere with joy in the midst of challenges and breakthroughs.