March #jammed: Grace Revealed.

Day 69: Please don’t quit.

“Fight the good fight of the faith.” 1 Timothy 6:12

“Crack …pop …ahhh….”

I’m a back cracker. Ever since I saw the student in front of me twist around to tune of sweet spine pops …I’ve been hooked. People have walked on my back to and squeezed my back in a bear hold. I can even make my tail bone crack …and my elbows crack. My parent’s are still horrified when I pop my finger knuckles.

And then, I had a bad back. A diseased back. A back that had started to fuse. All of the sudden, no thought of my back induced an “ahhhh….”

Physical therapy, pain killers, x-rays, chiropractic care, self-injected prescription medicine to the girl afraid of needles like no other …my back was a pain in the butt. Ankylosing Spondylitis. Diagnosis, complete. That was my file. This was to be my life. Not only did this shock my distance runner self to the core, but it scared me, too. No one knew the long term effects of the medicine I was taking …and I wasn’t supposed to get sick while taking it. Ummm …I have two kids of my own and I love all of them. And they carry no less than ten exposures to sickness at all times.

Enter, sadness. Hello, “I don’t understand why’s.”

My life didn’t feel like my life anymore. I quit running. I quit coaching. I quit meeting with people. I quit talking to runners. I quit looking out the window when runners were running  by house. OK, I didn’t do that …otherwise I wouldn’t have noticed them. But I really wanted to! It drove me nuts!

“Really, living under the covering of God means we are asking God to ‘see over’ our lives. But not just for the good, happy places. It’s those hard places too, the places that make us want to quit because we don’t understand what God is doing.” Nicki Koziarz, 5 Habits of a Woman who Doesn’t Quit.

I didn’t understand what God was doing.

“I’m so sorry,” my husband comforted. And we grew closer that day.

And so did me and Jesus. On the floor of my bedroom some days later, in a collapsed heap …I cried to my Father. Ugly, ugly, cry. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I remember the conversation. Months later I called another doctor when that text came through. I felt like I had to just see …and I saw …nothing. Wait, what?

Nothing.

No fusion. No disease. And I ugly-praise-cried all the way home.

I’m still always some sort of injured, as most old distance runners are, but it’s ok. I’ve learned to be happy with or without running, and anything else accept Him. My Savior. Hallelujah. You know what’s funny? That last doctor? Chiropractor. I can happily have someone else crack my back …for the rest of my life here on earth. #doublewin

Don’t quit hope.

Father, Praise You for miraculous healing! Thank You for hope. Forgive us for quitting before You are done working. Bless our lives to come crying to You when we don’t understand what You’re doing. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Have a miracle story? Get the conversation started by commenting below, and let’s encourage one another as we face life in 2017 armed with grace! 

#greatgrace17

Happy Healing,

Megs

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