During Pastor Bill's teaching last week, he asked those who had been in an accident and were still suffering the effects of trauma from it to please stand up. I thought of my right ring finger. I had slipped on some ice as a little kid and had gotten 5 stitches in it. It has long since healed, but there remains a ball of scar tissue under the skin that is uncomfortable. Sometimes my finger goes tingly and the nerves do funny things. Honestly, I hesitated to stand up at all because it felt like such a small matter. It doesn't really affect my quality of life a great deal. But I heard the Lord's thought as He said, "I want you to stand. I want to build your faith." I was 5 rows from the front so everybody was going to see me. Oh well. So, I stood up about 1 minute after everyone else had already been standing. Then Bill asked us to share with the people around us in brief what was wrong and what hurt. In the 30 seconds between when Bill asked us to share and when I did, the Lord quickly brought to mind a wakeboarding accident I had been in three and a half years prior when I had to get five staples in the back of my head. It was sort of a freak accident, but when I was jumping the wake, somehow the slack in the rope with the acceleration of the boat pulled me straight down into the water into a Superman dive, but because of the life jacket, I kind of just stuck in the water. The momentum threw my feet with the board still attached up and over my head, causing the edge of the board to actually pop me in the back of the head. As I got back on the boat, I mentioned the board had hit me and that I had a headache. One of the guys was an EMT, and I think when he realized the severity of the situation and that he could see my skull through a two-inch gash in my head, it surprised him, and he said his thoughts out loud, "Oh, you could have a TBI (traumatic brain injury) and are definitely going to need some stitches."
Side note: I did not have a TBI, just a big gash and a concussion. My head healed, the skin healed, but the skull never fully grew back together so there was always this two-inch-long ridge or line where the skull was slightly separated.
The Lord brought the story back to mind because the Lord was revealing and pinpointing that that was the exact moment that anxiety had entered my being. I shared my anxiety, and head and finger injuries very briefly with very little detail with the three people around me, and each person began praying over me in their native tongues simultaneously. One spoke fluently in Spanish, one in German, and one in English/Afrikaans. I had no idea what they were saying, but it didn't even matter because love is a universal language, and that, I understood. It was incredible. There are no language barriers when it comes to the Spirit. Hallelujah. When they finished speaking, I felt the back of my head, and the place where there once was a ridge in my skull was completely healed. There was no more ridge. I thought maybe I was missing it, so I asked my friend to check for it. She couldn't find it, either. Praise the Lord!
I learned in those moments that I can put away the measuring stick, that there is nothing too small to be significant or spiritual when it comes to the healing power of Christ, and that He cares about every piece and part of me. Also, back in the Bible times people used to make altars not only for sacrifices but also as physical reminders of what God had done in their lives—for them to remember His faithfulness and goodness. The healing of the scar on my head was a physical reminder for me of what God did on the inside. He healed my anxiety and allowed the Body of Christ to be a part of it. Faith is taking one step at a time and saying yes to Him as He prompts us. He doesn't always do what we think He'll do, but He always does something. And usually, at least in my experience, it is always better than I could have asked or imagined it to be.