[Spoiler] God Healed My Back!

The Injury: I've had back issues since I came back from an intense, six-week mission trip with Teen Missions International the summer I turned 12. I started to go to a chiropractor that fall, and have had to return to chiropractic help almost yearly since then.

Knowing this about myself, I typically stay away from unnecessary pressure on my back, and I always practice proper lifting techniques. Until Wednesday last week. The Dorm Olympics were underway, and Lachelle was explaining how to do a piggyback race. But teenagers who speak English as a second language don't listen better than any other teenagers (who actually don't listen worse than adults, for the record, they just happen to be told what to do in groups more often... I digress), so Lachelle said, "Let me climb on your back, and we'll show them how to do the race!" I didn't hesitate. I didn't even put down my papers and markers. I did it all. I am so amazing. We showed those kids how to complete that race good! The Dorm Olympics went swimmingly.

The Pain: On Thursday morning, I woke up with incredible back pain. The muscles between my left shoulder blade and spine were all knotted up and having spasms. I couldn't breathe well. I wondered if I should go to the hospital, or call Leah (my chiropractor friend), but I had no time for that, because I had a prayer meeting from 8 - 10 that morning.

The Healing: I told my fellow prayers about my pain, and how distracted I was by it. They prayed for me, and immediately, the pain started to ebb away. The muscles were no longer having spasms, and I could turn my head to the left, which was causing shooting pain before. I had a bit of pain, but 90% of it went away right then and there.

The Aftermath: As I write this, I'm no longer astonished or even overjoyed, though I feel like I should be. I experienced a miracle! And it's difficult to describe because it was so simple. God did it. Things changed because He intervened! I've prayed for healing before, and not been healed, at least not how I expected. Then this happens, and it was all so simple. I didn't do it. It wasn't that I had more or less faith this time than before. I've prayed with more faith before. I don't know, folks. But God can heal, and we have to keep asking him. Praise God, okay? Praise Him because He CAN heal us, and because he DOES heal us.

I Rock Your Baby Son to Sleep

When you announced that you would be married instead of going to college, I felt giddy with joy. Not, mostly, for noble reasons: it was putting together a wedding at such a young age; I must have seen a hundred movies with weddings and flowers, and rings, and kisses. Part of me was sad, too: we had planned to be college roommates; we would have made friends and histories that entwined forever.

So what would our lives look like at this distance? Occasional visits, always something shared deep down: separating histories, but a wire that kept our hearts moving in the same direction. Praise God! I have not lost you, friend. And I have gained a whole family of friends because you chose so bravely:

--------

I rock your baby son to sleep
Slanted light from the hallway
A CD plays a lullaby
Mellow-sweet, a gentle moment.

Suddenly, a pang tells me
how blessed you are among women;
that even to endure a thousand
crying, up-and-down nights,
bottle-or-no-bottle nights,
is worth his trusting, sleepy heart,
his fingers twirling his cropped, blond hair.
He snuggles into my arm and my side.

If I remain single and childless,
tonight I felt I’d miss
half the stars in the sky.

Never one for greed, I hope,
I delight in seeing your faces as
the skies unfold new grandeur before you:
the word “dog,” learning to run,
then the rock-step, snapping fingers,
sharing toys with his new brother.

June

It's beautiful: being overcome
by simple exhaustion at the end of a school year.

[Breathe.]

It's beautiful.

It's Wednesday. It's February. We're going to be fine.

I just finished reading The Hunger Games. I'm devastated and worthless after finishing a book. Time to go outside for a walk in the dark. Sure, it's melancholy, but not as much as looking at pictures from my high school graduation which I happened upon today. What a windy day. And whatever, Kelly wasn't the only one in National Honor Society. The rest of us returned our hoods immediately after the ceremony to avoid incurring a fine. And it's anyone's guess as to why Sly just can't behave in any of these photos.

A Full Day (part III)

[If you thought this day was over, you are very wrong.]

2:30pm: Angela, Leah, Joella, and I meet up with Becky briefly, then part to eat lunch elsewhere. We find a Coffee Shop Diner (yeah, weird... the theme of the diner was "coffee shop") and ate (!) and drank a lot of water. We then recollect Becky and leave for Pennsylvania. Becky has had a shower and looks bright and feels sore. I envy her cleanness, and wish to take a shower after those eight miles. I had never before run/walked eight miles!

4:45pm: We arrive in Lancaster in time for showers and brief naps before our dinner plans.

6pm: Carmen comes and we walk to Sukhothai to celebrate Leah's birthday! We are so relaxed at our long table in the middle of that blue and green restaurant, with lily pad-shaped lights above us. We realize that we have much to celebrate: Leah is one year older, Becky finished her marathon, Carmen graduated from her clinical pastoral education and received a position as an associate pastor nearby, I graduated from college, Carmen will be joining the house as I move out, and we are six friends sitting around one table. The last is reason enough to celebrate.

We walk home in a cold rain, the sky still light, the air fresher and scented with invisible honeysuckle.

Easter Sunday

Voices awaken me. Whispered words in the dark blue dawn. Or is it still night? I strain to hear.

Easter morning, 2009. Micah Berthold had died just three days before. My new pastor and his wife were struggling to bear the weight of this burden. Struggling to know what their good and gracious Lord would do with them now, so broken.

One man's whisper, just audible, "empty," he says. The horizon is just visible, the grass still does not shutter, thick with paralyzing dew.

We brought our praise to the Lord, offering him our thoughts, even our vicarious grief. We thought of sin and love's sacrifice. And we sang through throats choking on sobs.

I raise my head, still bleary from confusion and crying that had taken up the days since His death. No comfort came in sleep, just a place to lay the profound heaviness. We had entrusted all our hopes to Him. The loss we felt was more than that of a friend, or even a brother. We had lost the one who held the sky.

How did Pastor Josef do it? I don't know how he and Brenda bore greeting so many people. They remembered. I don't remember the song we were singing when one man said what we were thinking, "We love you, Josef."
"We love you, too, Bill," responded Josef as he and Brenda held one another's hands. Weight. Glory. Grief and pain were weight in our hearts. And God's glory was turning that weight into something somehow more precious than breathing.

More than one person now is talking, word is spreading. Something has changed, "Empty," "With their own eyes!" "She thought He was a gardener at first." Dawn is full blown day, and the word escapes every person's lips with more emotion and incredulous hope than I can bear, "ALIVE..."

"We shall not die," goes the song. And we sing it. And we believe it. Soul-cracked glory, the weight of the sky presses in. And we still believe it: we are ALIVE because He is also.

The moment when all fear is enveloped in hope--when you finally know you have seen the worst of it--it begs pause. And then, knowing, believing, seeing the promises of life unfold in the presence of my Lord, whose face I had despaired of ever seeing again--the soul leaps to joy.