For months I’ve been bothered by low back pain that extends into my hip and at times down my left leg. The pain has been annoying but manageable. An MRI a few weeks ago shows that I have two bulging discs, a tear in one of my discs, and one of the bulging discs is impinging a nerve. I’ve tried chiropractic adjustments, spinal decompression, dry needling, kinesiology tape, cortisone injections, massage, physical therapy, heat, ice, and various anti-inflammatories. While some of these therapies have offered some relief nothing seems be curing the problem.
The pain has become secondary to the worry and stress that it has planted in my head. My thoughts are always dominated by questions like… Is this ever going to get better? Am I making it worse with all of this training? Should I take a few days off from training? What if this gets worse and I never make it to the Ironman? I’m only 44, am I going to be bothered by this the rest of my life?
Then one day last week I was out running and my head was full of questions like… What do I need to do to fix this? Maybe I need to rest more? I should try one of those epidural steroid injections. For thirty minutes my mind raced with thoughts of all the things I could do to fix the problem with my back.
Then, as I often do, I began to to pray as I ran. And as I prayed I was reminded of Jesus in Matthew 9:20-22 and how he healed a woman with just a touch of his robe. I was reminded of how in Mark 2 Jesus told the paralyzed man “Rise, take up your bed and walk” and the man rose and immediately picked up his bed and walked out. I was reminded of John 9 and how Jesus restored sight to the man who had been blind since birth. And I was reminded of a healing miracle that Jesus had performed in my own life five years ago – how my own son received hope and healing through a miraculous heart transplant.
As I prayed and reflected on the stories of the healing miracles that Jesus performed, a sense of peace washed over me. In that moment I realized that there is nothing that I can do to heal my back. But more importantly, I realized that the nagging pain in my back was nothing to the ultimate healer who healed the crippled, restored eyesight to the blind, restored hearing to the deaf, and had even brought the dead back to life. I know that I will still at times worry and stress about what I need to be doing to heal my back but in those moments I will return to these verses and the peace that I found in them.
And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing EVERY disease and EVERY affliction. Matthew 9:35
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