What scoliosis is teaching me about faith

“IT’S NOT FAIR. BUT…”

I leaned against the kitchen counter at our friends’ house, my shoulders slouched, chin resting in my palm as I propped my elbow near the sink. I looked out the windows as my brother and our two friends jumped cheerfully on the trampoline in the backyard. The summer breeze carried their happy voices to the windows where I stood.

Upper half of the curve in my spine.

My mom made me stay indoors for this because my spine was especially susceptible to injury if I moved or fell the wrong way. 

Just several years before in 2007, I had been diagnosed with Adolescent Idiopathic Scoliosis, a kind of spinal deformity that develops during childhood, typically worsening with age and involving abnormal curvature of the spine and rotation of the vertebrae. The only treatments available are observation, braces, or surgery. 

In my case, the curvature is a side-to-side inverted “S” shape with rotation—or twisting—throughout my spine. The specialist we consulted in Memphis had strongly recommended that I wear a brace and get surgery. Given my stubbornness against a treatment so noticeable and invasive, and my mom’s inclination toward finding a more natural remedy that didn’t require metal rods permanently inserted into my spine, we opted to accept the limitations that my case of scoliosis would bring.

Lower half of the curve in my spine

But that day, as I watched my brother and friends play on the trampoline, I felt a bit resentful. Not just because of the fact that I couldn’t participate, but also because my brother wasn’t made to stay inside with me.

“It’s not fair,” my mom had said. “But you’re going to have to learn that life isn’t fair.” 

It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, and I sulked for a while. But looking back, I’m thankful that Mom was wise enough to teach me that lesson. And now, I’m even more thankful that she taught me that lesson even when it cost her something too.

SMALL FAITH, BIG PROMISES

My mom, brother, and I moved to a small town called Friendship, Tennessee, when I was eight. We began attending a small, country, Pentecostal church pastored by a couple who had been a cornerstone of support and a spiritual safe haven throughout my mom’s life, long before I was around. 

Aunt Sonya was Mom’s cousin. And her husband, whom I called “Uncle Bo,” was a peaceful, prophetic kind of person. He would share hard truths unflinchingly with people whom he loved deeply. Everyone knew he had the ear of God, and God had his ear too. But there was a softness and a warmth that I always felt in Uncle Bo. I gravitated toward him, and he to me. Very quickly, I began to cling to him, to watch him, to learn from him, to try to love God the way he did. My family was dealing with much more than just my scoliosis at the time. And Uncle Bo’s anchored faith—and the way he carried the presence of God with him—preserved each of us.

His ministry stretched farther than Tennessee, and one time he and several other pastors and preachers from all over the world came together for an intimate set of revival meetings in Jasper, Alabama. We traveled with them, and in one service, a prophet from Nigeria—whom we had never met before—called me and my mom to the front of the sanctuary. He told us that God was going to heal me of scoliosis, that he would straighten my spine, and that I would share the testimony with countless people. 

My mom wrote it in her journal that night, dated it, and the two of us held that word close to our hearts for years. I can’t count the times I’ve walked up to the front of the church for prayer that God would heal my back. 

I never said the words, “I have scoliosis” to anyone. I pretended the pain and discomfort weren’t there. I would deal with it and feel a sense of pride that my faith was stronger than the pain because I wasn’t lending the pain any language. So, I’d keep going up for prayer. I’d put my hand on my spine, feel the twisted curves and wait in expectation for it to straighten. “It will happen this time,” I’d think and believe to myself. It never did. 

WHO TO BELIEVE

I sat on the hospital floor, in the corner of a sterile, fluorescently-lit hallway, and sobbed uncontrollably. I’d just walked from my Uncle Bo’s hospital room. His skin was yellow, his eyes were open but blank. He had tubes attached to his nose and mouth, monitors beeping in the background.

I’d rushed there that evening, 45 minutes from my college campus, because I’d felt troubled in my spirit. I knew something was different about that night. Uncle Bo had been sick for a while, but I’d just known that God would heal him. Something compelled me to go be with him tonight, though.

Now, after I’d stood over him, the reality hit me. I bent down, gave him an awkward hug that he couldn’t reciprocate. I wasn’t sure if he even knew it was me. I whispered in his ear, hoping that he could understand, “I love you. I’ll remember everything you taught me about faith.”

I don’t know why I said that. Of all the things I could’ve told him, why was it about faith? Faith had brought me here, and it had disappointed me bitterly—in more ways than one.

In the corner of the hospital hallway, I continued to sob, knowing that I’d spoken the last words I ever would to my precious Uncle Bo. I remember telling God, “I so want to be angry at you right now. Help me not to be. I need my faith. And right now, it’s weaker than it’s ever been.”

I remember the Lord speaking to my spirit as clearly as I type these words. Not audibly, but clearly. He said, When you don’t know what to believe, know Who you believe. 

It was enough. I believed him. After what my family had faced, what I had faced. After every tinge of pain in my spine and after every disappointment at not being healed yet again, I still believed him. And I could only do such a thing because I loved him. I really loved this Father, this Jesus, this Spirit whom I’d been introduced to so long ago when my mom would read stories to me from the Hebrew scriptures and later when my Uncle Bo would wrap his arms around me and tell me with more than words how special I was to God and how deeply I was loved by God. So, I loved God back, as best I knew how. And my faith went on like an old, rusted truck down a gravel road. 

HAVE YOU TRIED _____?

Two years after Uncle Bo’s death, 13 years after my first diagnosis of scoliosis, countless chiropractor visits, and three years of college, I drove to my home church—30 minutes away from campus—for a prayer meeting. 

Once again, I walked up to the front of the sanctuary to receive prayer for my back. After the prayer, I was told by someone whom I love dearly and who I am convinced meant well, that they had once had some back pain too. They fasted and prayed through the night, and God healed them. Maybe I should try that.

At that moment, it was all I could do to walk to the other side of the room and shiver in anger and exasperation. Then the tears came again. A few people came periodically to put their arms around me. They’d felt the sting of those words too. 

“13 years, God,” I prayed. “13 years, I’ve believed you for this. Are you just being cruel?”

And that’s when I felt a check in my spirit. I knew God wasn’t cruel. I’d always known that. He’d walked with me all along. He’d carried me. I was never alone. And I was not about to push him away now. So, I changed my prayer. I don’t remember what it was that I prayed instead, but it was something similar to what I’d always prayed when my back was still the same.

This time, though, something was different. Something told me that this faith God had preserved in me all along—through healings that didn’t come either for myself or for my Uncle Bo—needed to stretch beyond where it had taken me thus far. 

I felt the Lord drawing me into a faith that contends for more than miracles. He wanted to build in me a faith that believes his goodness can be found in brokenness and pain, in twisted and curved spines, in cancer that isn’t remedied this side of heaven.

Photo taken during my time at Union University

CHOOSING TO LIVE IN A PARADOX

This is where I am now. I wish I could say that it all brought me to the well-learned lesson of God’s goodness, plus a straightened spine. My back still isn’t better. But I go to the chiropractor more often. I’m willing to say something when I’m in pain. I know to take breaks when I’m doing manual labor, i.e. vacuuming. 

I still can’t stand for more than a few minutes without feeling deep pains and aches in my bones and muscles. The hardest part is feeling like I can’t stand in church for worship. 

It’s hard to walk around or shop for an extended length of time. 

Sometimes when I’m at the beach and I see others’ straight backs, I have to remember the lesson my mom taught me on the day when my brother could jump on the trampoline and I couldn’t.

I move and squirm almost always, trying to get comfortable. I don’t know any different. Museums hurt. Road trips hurt. Bar stools hurt. Massage chairs are murder. Concerts hurt. Public speaking hurts. Cooking hurts. Standing desks hurt. Waiting in line hurts. Working out hurts. Hugs hurt.

My body moves differently than others. There’s a constant awareness that my internal infrastructure isn’t right, and the rest of me is affected by it.

I’m not saying all this to complain or ask for pity. I didn’t say any of these things for such a long time because I was trying to avoid both. Trust me, if asking for help has been hard, saying all this publicly is way harder. But I realize now that mine was a faith that was real, yet a faith that was afraid. Afraid of what would happen if I acknowledged my reality, and God still didn’t heal me the way I wanted him to. Afraid of looking like the fool who wanted a miracle.

But then I think about all the fools who wanted miracles in the Bible. Those who would shout Jesus’s name in crowds and be unsuccessfully silenced by them. The woman who pushed, unclean, through one of those crowds to touch the Son of God for a chance at a different reality.

You better believe I’m still holding out for a miracle. Anything less would be settling for a small God. If he’s not cruel, he’s certainly not small either. I’ve learned to believe both and live in that paradox. I’m still learning it. But I’m further along than I’ve ever been.

For years, I’ve debated writing all of this. It’s been a private struggle, shared by those closest to me, those who have gone out of their way to support me. But recently, I’ve felt the Lord leading me into a new season of openness. And I think it’s because I’m not the only one who’s walking this journey. I’m not the only one facing a paradox of faith. Whether it’s for physical healing, or for something else.

My hope is that this personal story of mine might bring those of you in a paradox of faith some comfort. My heart is so full of compassion for you, as is the heart of Jesus. 

If I could be bold enough to share a bit of encouragement, some lessons that I’ve learned along the way, would you be willing to receive the encouragement with grace toward me for where my own words won’t do justice to your experience? If so, then please keep reading.

ENCOURAGEMENT FOR THOSE IN A PARADOX OF FAITH

1. Focus on knowing God, and contend for a true vision of his love and power.

2. Trust that compassion and comfort can carry you best and will carry you farther than anything else.

3. Say yes to help, and say “help” more than you want to.

4. Let go of needing easy answers and explanations.

5. Hold kindness, patience, and boundaries with those who think they have easy answers and explanations.

6. Pray to not be disillusioned by the imperfect Church that Jesus treasures, especially when they, when we, get it wrong. Jesus doesn’t get it wrong.

7. Keep a long-term vision of healing, and never give up asking for it.

In Luke 11:5-13, Jesus shares a parable of a neighbor who comes to a friend’s house late at night, after everyone has gone to bed, asking for three loaves of bread. The neighbor tells his friend to go away, it’s late. But again and again, that friend keeps knocking, asking for the three loaves. And because of the friend’s “shameless persistence,” the neighbor finally gets out of bed to give his friend the three loaves of bread.

Jesus says, “And so I tell you, keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”

“You fathers—if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead? Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.”

Jesus tells us that his most valuable gift to us—more valuable than everything else for which we’re asking, knocking, and seeking—is himself, his Spirit, the Spirit through whom he created all things and makes all things new. Whether he gives us what we think we want, it’s a great comfort to me that God will choose to give me what I would ask for if I knew what he knows, even if it disappoints me now.

He is with me. He is with you. That is healing. One day, it might and hopefully will look like a straightened spine. But if my spine isn’t straightened until heaven, I will thank him for always being with me in the pain and discomfort and tears, knowing he always gave me the greater gift. And I will gladly choose to live in that paradox.