Healing || six months

"A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity." Proverbs 17:17

Six months ago, God healed me. That's right, you heard me. 

My thought for today was to sit down with a cup of tea, put on some instrumental worship music, and finally write out the full story of how God healed me. Every tear, every bump along the way, every thread of Grace that has connected my story so far and woven me into God's crazy unfolding plan for my life. 

But, I have decided that it would be wiser to wait, as this story is one better told in person. 

So please, ask me! 

I wish to tell any and everyone the honest miracle that The Lord of Love has worked in my heart, mind, and knee.

I'm going to try to keep this brief, so I'm omitting a lot of details. It may seem like a lot, but trust me--there is so much more to share about who God is and who I am because of that. (Again, just ask!)

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Long story short, two and a half years ago, I had a life-changing injury. For most people, tearing a ligament in their knee is a painful setback that at most takes a year to make a full recovery from. But for me, and at the time of life that I was in, this injury stopped me dead in my tracks. 

Fast forward through two years of growing up, graduating, surgery, college, emotional highs and lows, physical highs (including running a full 5k) and many more physical lows, more rehab than I care to discuss, trying to get back on the court, managing freshman year for the women's team while working with the trainers on my own time, a pre-season hit last year, come-backs and tweaks and MRI's and rest and practice and then more tweaks and more MRI's, etc. throughout a full basketball season, trying to fix myself and failing time after time, and one final micro-injury in January that ended my basketball career as a player for good. 

So, here we are at January 6, 2015. The last time I hurt my knee on the court during a drill. Let me give you a snapshot of who Betsy Garris was: broken, faithless, insecure, fragile, confused, empty, tired, in so much unspoken and deep pain, and done. 

Fast forward to Spring Break. I went on a DC service trip called Urban Plunge through Intervarsity Christian Fellowship because I had signed up for it months before. If I hadn't already committed to it, there is no way in the spiritual and physical state that I was in that I would've gone. But there I was, in a church basement in Annacostia, hoping somehow God would meet me or whatever. We did a lot of walking, and while I thought ahead to bring my knee brace, my prescription anti inflammatory  was no match for the swelling and growing radiating pain from the journeying around the District. In this place of deep emotional brokenness and physical pain, one of the other campus's helpers, Victor, reached out to me. Throughout the week, he could tell when something was wrong, he stopped to listen to me although I wouldn't tell him much, he daily asked me "how are you doing today" or "how's the knee" and wouldn't let me answer "ok", he daily kept me accountable to take my pain meds even though I was resistant, and looked out for me even to the point of forcing me to sit and prop up my knee (and Ice it, shout out to Esrael for walking to the convenience store multiple times to get ice for me) as he dragged chairs over during meetings and sat with me. 

Sixth months ago yesterday, I broke. I broke down. I got real with where I was at with my St. Mary's group, and balled. Wailed really. I apologized for keeping them at an arms length, for trying to carry this all on my own--my pain, my friends' pain, and my physical and emotional health. I always thought that God could heal me if he wanted to, but He won't. He could work in my heart, and I'd take care of my leg. That was my domain. My job. If I came back, it would be because I was stronger than the injury. I was stronger. But I was so very wrong. That night, I admitted how bad all of my pain was, and how it wasn't just my knee, how the three weeks I stayed in bed that semester weren't only due to migraines, but crippling pain and depression. I felt like I was drowning. I mean not just struggling to swim, but head under water and breathing in that water and slowly sinking. After an outpouring of love from my St. Mary's family and countless hugs, prayers, and shared tears, I felt so free. Honesty again had a place in my life. When people cleared out and I was still sitting, I called over Esrael and whispered to him that I didn't think I could walk back to where we were bunking and asked for crutches. They didn't have any, so he asked Victor to help me walk back. Victor not only offered to be my human crutch, but insisted on carrying me back to which I responded with a laugh and a "No". I'm not exactly used to being carried (although looking back, I should've swallowed my pride and let him.) So, we settled on what you see in this photo: arm in arm, side by side, me fully leaning on him as I unloaded my story on him and finally opened up. He wasn't only bearing my physical weight that night we walked. 

The following day, six months ago today  my knee was bad.

I mean bad. 

I had been open, and honest finally, with everyone but no relief. Our last session of the day I sat against the wall with my leg propped up on my backpack as I struggled to focus on the message. I prayed that God wouldn't let my pain distract me, but that I would be able to focus. Instead, I was blinded. I was blinded by pain and my situation, by my own brokenness and bitterness, by how cold I had become, and how angry I was. It was then with tears in my eyes that I said these words to God that disgust me now. "God not only do I think you won't heal me, You can't." It was the first time I had ever thought that or prayed that. In that moment, the Holy Spirit whispered something strongly to me. "Go ask Victor to pray for you." In my pride I answered "NOPE. God if you want him to pray for me, send him over here. Cus I'm not going over there." A grand total of five seconds later, Victor was down by my side and asked if he could pray for me. Reluctantly, and with an eye roll toward heaven, I shrugged my shoulders with a "Sure."

 It was then, when I was fully faithless, that through the faith of a brother, a faithful and faith-filled stranger who I had only known a few days, that the unthinkable happened.

After laying hands on my knee as he silently prayed, and once he took he hands off, I felt my knee re-adjust. I felt my knee cap wiggle around, my whole knee cavity buzz, and I instantly was numb inside and out. And here is the craziest thing: it was cold. My knee was cold to the touch. I hadn't iced it for hours. And it was cold. The swelling had disappeared, I mean my blimp of a knee looked normal in size for the first time in two years, and was Ice. Cold.  I began to hyperventilate, and that is when everything blurs.

Next thing I know I am crying and struggling to breath through blubbering sobs in a chair in the back of the room with friends around me praying and Victor holding my shaking hand right next to me. Somewhere through the fog I heard these words come from his mouth, "You need to stand up and walk. Jesus wants you to walk." All I could manage to do was shake my head. I couldn't get the word "No" out. I couldn't get any words out. I was crippled by fear: fear that I'd stand up and still feel pain. I couldn't. I could get my hopes up one more time. If I did and felt pain, I would be done. I mean done with life. I wouldn't live anymore. I would be dead. After Victor prayed for me, I said "What if I fall?" and Victor said that they would be right there to pick me back up. But he said this too. "You won't, have faith." "Do you trust Jesus? He says Rise and Walk." 

And I did.

And I collapsed.

Because for the first time in two years, I was fully pain free.

When I was helped to my feet, I walked upstairs to the sanctuary of the church so the meeting could progress. When I got the the stairs, with a curious smile and covered in tears, I ran. I ran up the stairs and bargain to jump around the church. I could jump, without pain, for the first time in such a long time. All I could do was dance and cry and laugh and roll around on the floor because I couldn't process what I had just been proven: that God LOVED me. I didn't think he loved me. I mean he tolerated me, and for some reason wanted me, but he loved me. I kept asking him why me, when I know of so many hurting people in the world. I began to feel grateful but guilty at the same time. I was undone. In the most beautiful way. While praying earnestly hand in hand with a few friends and Esrael and Victor, Victor quietly interrupted me and said that God hears me, and now I needed to go tell people. I've been hiding how bad my pain is from people for so long, the last thing I wanna do is go stand in front of a filled room, hair slicked back with tears, makeup running, acne scars on full display, and talk about how wrong I was and how awesome God is. But, with a deep breath and a long prayer, I found myself at a podium just beaming with joy and confidence and love for my Savior and Father and Healer. "The God who moved mountains and parted seas still does miracles in knee caps and hearts." Those were the words of the Spirit that I heard come out of my own mouth that stick with me still. He still does mighty things in weak and undeserving people. 

The next day, I was in shock. I was struggling to process everything and got caught in the nervous "Now what?" mindset. All I have prepared for for the past few years was how to glorify God in trials. Now what? What do I do? I was talking with Victor about how I didn't know what to do in the wake of all of this, how when I stood up for the first time in faith I might as well have been jumping off of a cliff, that is how scary and serious this was for me, and that is when he said something that will forever be the motto of my Christian walk. He said, "Well....where is the next cliff?" Where is the next place in my life that I need to jump and free fall into God? Where am I sitting on the edge, holding onto my own way? Where do I need to have reckless abandon and let God do his thing, his perfect, scary, wonderful thing? Where is the next cliff?

I've sought to be a spiritual cliff diver ever since.

Esrael reminded me that trials will come and go. And the answer to my "Now what" is to enjoy God's rest, to tell the good news of who God is despite of who I am, and prepare for the next trial. I am guaranteed more hard times in this life. But I am so grateful and thankful for this season, six months, of relief and refreshment. Of spiritual health and renewed energy to keep fighting my sin and be faithful in little so that I can be faithful in much someday. 

After all of this, I got an MRI. Prior to this life changing trip, we were certain I had either damaged my ACL or torn a meniscus based off of location of pain and symptoms. The MRI revealed that my ACL and menisci were perfectly fine. That is insane, as all signs say that is impossible.

However, I do still have patellar fraying and slight tearing. Because of this, I can't play sports without tearing it further. While it's hard as an athlete to hear that, I am so relieved. I now have nothing to prove anymore. I am free.

God took my pain, and left part of the problem to set me free from a burden I thought I had to bear: recovery.

I have been pain free for six full months now. 

He has healed so much of me, from the inside out. 

I am new, I am free.

For the first time, I am ME. I feel like I never was myself before, my truest self.

I am so free in Him. This is because he LOVES me, as broken as I am, for just how I am. He sees my brokenness, loves me anyways, and loved me enough to let me struggle so that I would know my salvation alone comes from Him.  And I am still mind blown at his love for such a hate-filled, ungrateful wretch like me. Through mountain climbing in Greece, walking around DC for my internship, and living a spiritual life closer tied to my Forever Love than ever, He has remained faithful and I still cry when I think about the overwhelming Grace He has shown to me. All I can do is praise Him, and tell of how freaking Awesome my God is. 

I am so grateful for the example of Christ's servanthood, the Spirit's boldness to speak truth and the Father's heart for me that Victor was. He was a brother born for adversity. He carried me in so many ways. He fought with me, and prayed for me. And through his faith and not my own, God did a mighty, mighty thing. May we all seek to be spitting images of the Triune God in the way that Victor showed love to me, a hurting sister.

So, my question to you all is, where are the cliffs in your life? Where are you standing on the edge but not willing to jump? It's not enough to look off of the cliff into the dark, unseen bottom and say "I believe God can catch me if I were to jump." Faith is radical. Faith is jumping when you can't see the bottom, when you can't see God there to catch you. Faith isn't believing He'll catch you. Faith is jumping and letting Him catch you. 

Please share this to any and everyone who needs to be reminded that GOD STILL DOES WONDERS and the Healer still heals knee caps and hearts. 

For His Glory, and His Glory alone,

Let's all be cliff divers.

~B.