I’m sharing some excerpts from my in-progress manuscript about Rich’s Ride. You can check out previous posts here.
# # # # #
I’ll confess to being a bit overwhelmed as the group gathered on Friday evening. It’s one thing to be invited to address a previously scheduled event, but these folks just showed up, with almost no notice, to listen to someone they’d never heard of a day earlier. These didn’t appear to be people with nothing better to do, so I figured Kelley must be pretty persuasive.
As a physical therapist, Kelley was curious about the bike, my injury, and how we’d gotten to this point. We had quite a bit of fun at her expense as she attempted to pedal a handcycle around the sanctuary. I did my presentation and we enjoyed a wonderful group discussion that featured sincere, perceptive questions. As we talked afterward I was humbled when Kelley shared a small piece of her story.
In her early twenties she struggled through a tough battle with cancer. As she endured multiple rounds of chemotherapy and radiation treatments Kelley talked to God about rearranging priorities regarding two issues.
When doctors offered gloomy predictions about a “low probability” of becoming pregnant, she wondered about future plans for a family. She accepted the reality that her desire to have children might be fulfilled through adoption.
She also understood that her physical capabilities had changed. Prior to treatment her goal was to climb the “Colorado fourteeners,” the fifty-eight Colorado mountain peaks that exceed fourteen thousand feet. But the cancer and side-effects of treatment significantly limited her ability to breath at high altitudes. For a long time she couldn’t run or even walk fast, and she had to rearrange her priorities regarding exercise.
When we met on Elk River Day, sixteen years after the treatments ended, Kelley had just completed her first duathlon (run-bike-run). She beat her “dream time” by more than fifteen minutes, inspired by a personal cheering section that consisted of her husband and the three young children to whom she gave birth.
I’m still processing Kelley’s concluding statement. “I sincerely hope I never have to go through the cancer battle again, but I wouldn’t trade my cancer experience for the world, because of how close to God I became and how much I learned to trust Him and depend on Him. I do think he possibly allowed the cancer to happen to get my attention, and I’m thankful for that ‘wakeup call.’ It rearranged my priorities. Definitely it was worth it for the relationship I now enjoy with Jesus.”
It was one of many moments on the trip when the only appropriate response, or at least the only one I could muster, was “Wow!”
In my presentation I stated that I never seek to romanticize my injury, because being confined to a wheelchair stinks. It’s painful and frustrating and embarrassing, and I ask God regularly to heal my injury. I’m incredibly grateful for all of the good that He has brought from a tragic accident, but I can’t say that I’m thankful for the injury or its terrible consequences. And I do not believe God caused this suffering.
But Kelley’s incredible testimony helped me reconsider. I am closer to Jesus because of my injury. I have learned to trust God a bit more. And those rewards are definitely worth any price.
But I still don’t like sitting in a wheelchair.
I absolutely believe God answers prayers. I believe He answered Kelley’s prayers, and I believe He answered mine. In every way that really matters in Kingdom terms, God has healed me. He’s used the circumstances of my injury to bless me in unimaginable and countless ways. I also believe God hears my prayers for physical healing. I don’t know why I’m still paralyzed, but I emphatically reject the suggestion that it’s because God ignored my prayers.
As I said, I don’t understand how prayer works.
Kelley talked about faithfully respecting God’s timing. Maybe He told her to wait, or perhaps His YES involved a longer-than-expected time frame. Maybe it took sixteen years to perceive the radical, but gradual, alteration that ultimately led her to a place of such great joy.
God often works on an extended timeline. He promised a child to Abraham and Sarah when they were probably in their seventies, and they waited nearly twenty-five years for Isaac’s birth. The Israelites entered the land of milk and honey more than six hundred years after God’s promise to Abraham. Simeon served his entire life in the Temple before he beheld the Messiah. God frequently seems to operate in terms of long term arcs rather than sudden u-turns.
So if He doesn’t seem to be responding, perhaps the answer isn’t NO or WAIT. Maybe He’s doing the new thing we seek right now, but we need some time and trust to see His answer from our limited perspective. I just don’t know.
Kelley’s story provided an opportunity to celebrate without analysis, to embrace the mystery of being held in the arms of a loving God whose ways and thoughts are beyond our comprehension. It was a chance to hang out with Jesus and a few of His friends, a reminder that Jesus is a person rather than a collection of theological ideas. Hearing about Kelley’s miracle helped me to know Him and let go of knowing about Him.
Elk River Day was an implausible confluence of people, events, and circumstances. When I looked through the hotel window at dense, impenetrable fog I couldn’t possibly have imagined the inspiring story of courage I encountered as the day concluded. When Kelley received that phone call from our mutual friend Kathleen she couldn’t predict that she’d open a web page several weeks later and feel prompted to step into our journey in such a powerful way. When Becky struggled to make my daily ride as smooth as possible she didn’t visualize a supportive prayer circle of new friends who would help her rediscover personal peace.
It’s all an amazing coincidence, right?
That’s not what I believe. God was at work doing a new thing, faithfully responding to spoken and unspoken prayers. I don’t understand how that works, but that’s okay.
He’s God. I’m not. I’m glad.
Please leave a comment here.
# # # # #
If you’ve enjoyed the updates from Rich’s Ride, please check out my blog at BOUNCING BACK.
We’ve got a great circle of folks who look at living life on purpose and following Jesus in the real world. I hope you’ll join us.
Want to receive free updates?
Click below to get Bouncing Back
delivered directly to your inbox.
