Scoliosis Story - Part 1: Unanswered Prayers

I think I was 13 years old when I first found out that I would have to have surgery on my back. I had scoliosis, a serious case of it, and while we had discussed bracing and other options with a doctor, it sounded like surgery was going to be inevitable.

When you are a teenager the prospect of major surgery sounds like a disaster. It's scary, it's confusing, and you worry that you won't be able to be "normal" (which is, of course, the most important thing to be in high school). I was a dancer too, so any interruption to my dance training felt like it would be a complete disaster. All my friends that I took classes with would be ahead of me... I would have to take six months off from dancing after the surgery, and then it would take me six more months to work up to where I had been... I would be a whole year behind! I was a teenager... I had limited perspective, and I was very competitive. I thought this would be the end of my world.

I was in denial for quite a while about the situation. During the year that all of this started happening I was in 8th grade and was preparing to confirm my faith at my church. I was going on confirmation retreats with my church youth group, spending time at Bible studies and in confirmation classes, and I was definitely at a spiritual high point in my life. At my church at the time I heard constantly about the power of prayer and how God can do anything, and all we have to do is ask and believe. So I asked. I asked God to miraculously heal me, to make it so that I wouldn't need surgery, and I really expected him to do it.

I should have heard people teaching about how God suffers with us in the midst of our trials. I should have heard about how God answers prayers differently than we would like sometimes. I should not have had the idea that if God didn't heal me it was because I didn't have enough faith. I should have heard the countless Bible stories of people like Hannah, who prayed earnestly for something for years and years. And maybe (probably) I was told all those things but they just didn't sink in at the time. The idea of a God who does what we want if we just believe and ask hard enough is just so seductive. It makes so much sense to us, especially if we still have ourselves at the center of our universe. But God's ways are mysterious and sometimes instead of eliminating troubles, he chooses to work through them instead.

Note, this doesn't necessarily mean that God causes the troubles we face. The world is broken and fallen, and troubles happen to all of us. But God sometimes chooses to come and be with us in our troubles and to work through the hard times, redeeming them in the end for something better. God is not about throwing things away once they're broken! No! He sent Christ to our sinful broken world to walk among us in it and save us through his son. It is completely consistent with God's saving character that he does not eliminate all bad that we experience. Just as he sends Christ into our fallen world, he comes into each of our broken lives and meets us there, right where we are. But I did not understand this at all as a 13-year-old.


Every appointment I had, part of me would be surprised to see my x-rays unchanged. God was really waiting till the last minute! But he would come through! As we got closer to my surgery, as it actually was scheduled and put on the calendar for December of 2004, I started to wonder why God wasn't answering my prayers.


I am so blessed that God used his Holy Spirit working in my heart to keep my faith in him strong during that time. It would have been so easy to begin to question God and wonder why he wasn't acting in the only way that I thought made sense. I never questioned God's existence or his love for me, even though I was hurt and confused that he didn't answer my prayers. Looking back, I take no credit for that.

Faith is truly a gift. We cannot believe in God apart from the Holy Spirit working in our life, and although I didn't understand and I felt let down, God never left me and he never let me down. He was there with me the whole time, and I knew it too, even though it was hard, and even though God didn't do what I thought he should.

"For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith. And this not of yourself, it is a gift of God. Not by works, so that no one can boast." ~ Ephesians 2:8-9

Part 2: Surgery and Recovery