Last fall, I decided to do a triathlon. I told a lot of people about it, and generally got one of two reactions. People either said “Way to go!” or they asked “Are you crazy?” Some people asked why, and I told them I had only one item on my bucket list, and it was to finish a triathlon before I was 50.
That was sort of true, but I made up the bucket list and put the triathlon on it because I was not ready to talk about the real reason. That story is more complicated and much more interesting than a bucket list item.
I had trouble with my joints from the time I was a kid, and it grew progressively worse as I aged. It was common for me to lie in bed at night and do a mental inventory of my body parts, trying to find something that didn’t hurt (the top of my head, the little finger on my left hand) and to focus on that one pain-free area so that I could fall asleep. Eventually I had one doctor diagnose me with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrom, and another tell me that I could delay the inevitable with braces and surgeries, but that I’d end up in a wheelchair by the time I was 60. I did wear braces for years, on my wrist and my legs, and had a couple of surgeries to alleviate the pain and other effects. I was about to schedule surgery to have my wrist fused. Then God spoke.
I was reading my Bible, something I’ve done pretty regularly for the past 15 years, and God spoke to me, saying, “It’s all true.” Now I thought I already believed that the Bible was true, but it turns out there were a whole lot of passages that I didn’t understand, by which I mean that I couldn’t reconcile what they said with what I saw around me. Instead of wrestling with those passages, I would skip over them until I came across something I did understand, and that I had no trouble believing.
God clearly meant for me to take Him at His word, and I began to read with a different approach. One of the things I read was that Jesus healed me- provided physical healing- when He was beaten and crucified. (1 Peter 2:24, Isaiah 53:5) I grew up believing that God could heal me if He wanted to, but I wasn’t healed so apparently He didn’t want to. That view of mine didn’t match what Scripture says though, so for the first time I really believed that God was right and I was wrong. Jesus also says, many times, “your faith has healed you.” I continued to study, and that built up my faith, and I was healed of the joint issues (among other things, but that’s another story.) Praise God! My braces are on a back shelf in the closet and I am in better health than I have ever been!
I’ve never been any sort of athlete, but I chose to do a triathlon to demonstrate part of what God has done for me. I had a great time at the triathlon yesterday, praising God and celebrating my new freedom. It was awesome!