A knife and two rings

Life doesn’t stop moving even when we do.

The last time I wrote to you, it was sharing my journey through the diagnosis process, through chronic pain, and overseas to Norway.

Some of us feel locked up because our minds won’t work. Others because our work feels stagnant. Others because our relational life is caught in a vicious cycle. Others because our bodies won’t work the way they’re designed to.

The last of these is still somewhat of the boat I am in—but life sure hasn’t stopped moving.

Today I’ll tell you about the first object referenced above: the surgeon’s knife.

But it came after the first ring.

You see, when last I published on The Inquisitive Inkpot, there was a man who had helped see me through so much of the pain, disability, and uncertainty of the summer. Somehow my physical weakness and emotional fatigue didn’t make him draw away, but instead draw closer.

On November 22, the day before Thanksgiving, he asked me to be his wife.

This was four weeks after my hip pain returned.

As an active duty Air Force officer, he knew at the time of his proposal that he would deploy in March. To many, this seemed like a good reason to postpone the wedding until his return in October of 2024.

But to us, it seemed like a good reason to tie the knot as soon as possible. We knew. God had brought us together, and it couldn’t have been more clear.

The only uncertainty was whether to have my hip surgery before or after the wedding – as my physical therapist helped me determine that surgery was necessary in order to experience permanent recovery without future debilitating flare-ups of pain.

With the wedding scheduled for March 2^nd, the surgeon said the latest I could afford to have the operation while being mobile enough for the wedding was the end of December. The week before Christmas, I got on the wait list for surgery. That was a wait list with 50 people ahead of me. It was a long shot, so I also set a surgery date for April, expecting the pre-wedding option wouldn’t pan out.

In fact, the surgeon himself and the office both told me,

“It would literally take a miracle for you to get in before the new year. But okay, you’re on the wait list.”

But the next day, the call came: there was an opening and none of the other 50 people on the wait list could take it. In short: my Christmas miracle had happened.

It is remarkable what God can do with medical wait lists.

I will share with you about the second ring in my next article, because I want to focus on the knife for now.

My recovery has been slow, painful, frustrating, and nonlinear. If you have had surgery (especially joint surgery), you know exactly what I mean. There aren’t just good days and bad days—sometimes there are bad weeks, when your inflammation won’t let you move without burning and that means you can’t move much.

But I walked down the aisle on March 2^nd.

This fact, and the fact that the procedure even happened in time, helps when my faith is weak. Yes, I have lived the past year in chronic pain. Perhaps for you, that is only a fraction of the years you have lived with physical pain.

My story of deliverance isn’t over yet, and it also isn’t everyone’s story. I wish I could promise you that whatever ailment you are struggling with will be healed in this body.

I can’t promise you that.

But there’s another promise that’s better, because it’s not limited to your body. In fact, it’s God’s promise.

“God works all things for the good of those who love Him – for those who are called according to His purpose.”

Romans 8:28

If you love God – and I don’t mean love in the sense of “have warm fuzzies toward” Him – if you have given over your existence and life to His purpose instead of your own, then you have the promise that He is not going to waste your pain. No matter how much of it or how long it lasts.

With pain, He takes a knife and carves out the diseased parts of our souls that we haven’t let go of yet. Maybe parts we didn’t even know existed.

It’s not fun and there isn’t an anesthetic, but it’s necessary if we are going to grow. The good news is God’s solution for our souls lasts beyond this lifetime, unlike any other procedure.

The other good news is there’s no wait list.

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Before you go…

In the next couple of posts, I am going to share with you my short film, The Pawn Shop, which recently debuted and was selected as a finalist in a short film competition. Sign up for my newsletter to get notified as soon as it’s posted!