It’s pretty easy to trust God when we can see the path ahead, and to have peace about a situation when everything’s going smoothly. But what about when it’s not? I used to think that God’s peace over a situation meant that the path would seamlessly unfold before me – no bumps, no hurdles, no roadblocks. Or in my recent experience – no blizzards. 

On New Year’s Eve I had surgery to remove the hardware in my skull and neck put there during my occipitocervical fusion 15 months prior, and to remove the C2 and C3 nerves. Shored up on the prayers of so many people, including my surgeon who prayed that he and everyone in the operating room would be filled with the Holy Spirit and that God would heal me, I came through that surgery perfectly. My post-op appointment was a week later, and I woke up that morning to an unprecedented blizzard in DC. It was January 6th, and all available snow plows were ensuring that the members of Congress could safely get to the Capitol. The rest of the city was left floundering, including my Tesla Uber whose system didn’t know how to handle the snow, and we drove on unplowed roads for half an hour on the highway, barely able to navigate through the heavy snow, with the windows down! This would had been rough for me on a good day – but I’d woken up with my nervous system going haywire and was having trouble regulating my heart rate and breathing; and had searing pain behind the bandage covering the 8 inch incision on my skull. 

I had met with my neurosurgeon in DC the day before the election in November, and we had determined I was going to need three more spine surgeries over the next nine months – the first on my neck on NYE, then moving down to my thoracic spine in April, end ending with my lumbar spine. The imaging of my thoracic disc was over a year old, so the day before surgery I got a new MRI that I brought to my snowy post-op appointment. With one look at my imaging, my surgeon said the disc had gotten much worse and had herniated through the protective dura surrounding my spinal cord, causing a cerebrospinal fluid leak, and was tethering my spinal cord to the back side of my spine. Surgery could not wait three months after all. I asked what precautions I needed to take and what symptoms I should watch out for, and he answered not to bend my spine, and to watch out for sudden paralysis – no big deal. He walked me through the different approaches he could take to access my disc and decided on a costotransversectomy approach – i.e. he will go at an angle through my ribs, hopefully not needing to separate them, removing the piece of bone where my spine meets my ribs to access the anterior side of my disc, and will them remove the herniated portion, de-tether my spinal cord, repair the hole in the dura, and do so without paralyzing me. He also informed me that I needed a spinal angiogram before surgery to map out the arteries in my thoracic spine so that he doesn’t inadvertently puncture one. He dictated in my visit notes that my condition was life-threatening, as I came close to passing out in his office.

The following hours and days were a flurry of frantic calls and emails lining up surgery, travel and caregivers; all while I was struggling to recover from my surgery just a week prior. That week my pastor preached on the promises of God, and that because he always keeps his promises, we can claim them as done, even before we see any of them come to be! I started thanking God for all the ways that he is going to use these events in my life for my good and his glory. Having a mindset of gratitude and praise actually changes our neural pathways – it’s impossible to experience anxiety and gratitude at the same time! 

As I have done so many times, I prayed that God would fill me with his peace leading up to yet another (my eleventh) surgery, as a sign that this is indeed his will, and that path started stretching out smoothly in front of me. Around that time I read a devotional about how God so often calls us into chaos so that he can meet us there to show us even more of himself. I started thinking about all the times I prayed for peace over a situation, and did have peace – yet it was in the midst of chaos. On Christmas Eve I woke up to hives covering my body because the hardware in my skull was heightening allergic reactions, and I had to go on prednisone. It cleared up the hives but also lowered my immune system – not ideal one week away from surgery. Yet I could see God in that boat on that choppy sea, saying “I’m right here with you, I just want you to rely on me and not on that smooth sea.” 

A few days after reading about God calling us into chaos, I had a consult with the doctor who will be performing my spinal angiogram, and learned that it is a major procedure. It’s done under general anesthesia, and can take up to five hours as the catheter makes its way through the left and right side of all 32 segments of my spine. While they’re in there, the doctor will also monitor the small aneurysm in my brain that was found a few years ago during a cerebral arteriogram. And because of my weakened connective tissue, I have a higher risk of arterial puncture. The angiogram will be done just three days before surgery on my thoracic spine. 

I got off the phone with the doctor and once again felt like I was in the middle of a blizzard, windows down, snow pelting my face. But here’s the thing – for lack of a more fitting metaphor – God is in the drivers seat of that Tesla, navigating those snowy, unplowed roads. I gave Jesus my steering wheel a long time ago – although I too often try to take it back! Have I had moments of fear and panic? Of course that has crept in! But it hasn’t taken root, because I keep choosing to thank God for the ways he’s going to come through on his promises to use this ALL for my good. I’m choosing to praise him as the Promise Keeper, because I know that chaos is just his way of deepening my dependence on him, and him alone.

“Some trust in horses, and some trust in chariots, but I trust in the name of the Lord my God.” Psalm 20:7

God alone is my healer. He holds me in the palm of his hand, and every one of my days was written in his love story about me, before one of them ever came to be. 

Every one of God’s character traits reveals a promise. God is love, therefore I get to experience his love- through all the people he has provided to help me through this journey, and I can anchor myself with the promise that everything that happens in my life is out of his perfect love for me. It’s pretty fitting that this next surgery is on Valentine’s Day! 

So many of you have been so faithful in praying for me during a dizzying amount of surgeries and procedures these past several years, and God has been beyond faithful! Please pray once again. On Tuesday February 11, with DC slated for another snow storm, I have my spinal angiogram. Please pray that the doctor would be able to find the thoracic artery quickly, that my aneurism hasn’t grown, and that there would be no complications of arterial tears or from any other aspect of this procedure. Then surgery is on Friday February 14. Please pray for wisdom for my surgeon as he navigates a very difficult terrain accessing the front side of my spinal cord in the center of my chest. That he will be able to repair my spinal cord and dura with no paralysis or any other complications. Please pray that God would use this surgery to heal me – once and for all. Please pray for my recovery – as my skull and neck are still far from healed, my body is still struggling to bounce back from surgery just six weeks ago, and will be compounded by two more. The weather next week in DC is forecasted to be pretty stormy – quite the fitting prediction. But this I know…

“God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.” Romans 8:28

Ending with some comic relief!!!