Held Before I was Healed

Almost a year before the infection surfaced, I was still trying to be my old self.

I rode along with my husband to look at a job, planning to take notes for him, doing what I could to stay useful, to stay normal. There was a little girl there. She was shy, but clearly wanted to be seen.

While the adults were talking, she slipped past all of us into another room. Suddenly, loud worship music started playing- “Grave Robber” by Crowder. She knew every word. Her parents laughed and proudly told us she sang it all the time.

I’ve always connected easily with kids, so we talked for a bit. But what stayed with me wasn’t the conversation, it was the song.

I listened to it again later. Then another worship song played. And another. I didn’t think much of it at first. I was just listening.

Then one day, when the knot in my leg could no longer be ignored, my husband drove me to the emergency room to have it examined. On the way, “Somebody Prayed” came on the radio.

Not long after that, my entire radio station changed.

What I didn’t realize at the time was that God was already making His way back into my life, gently, quietly. Before I knew how much I was going to need Him.

I didn’t know then how much I was about to need Him. Not because I hadn’t needed Him before, but because everything that came next would depend on Him.

It began with the infection.

After surgery to remove the infected parts, there were weeks of antibiotics. Every day meant traveling an hour to the hospital to receive IV medication through a PICC line. There was no season of rest. It was February-cold, heavy, and exhausting.

Most days, I sat in a wheelchair, angry about my situation. Angry about my circumstances. Weary from carrying questions that didn’t yet have answers.

One day, as I waited to be taken inside, the valet who rolled me in, while my help was busy, muttered under his breath. Nothing dramatic. Most people would have missed it. He said, “I hate this job,” almost too quietly to hear.

Instead of pulling me deeper into my frustration, something shifted.

I looked around at the signs pointing to different departments-heart care, wound care, NICU, IV Therapy. And I realized how heavy it must be to stand at the door of other people’s suffering every day. I know now that God was in that moment.

What could have been an excuse to stay angry became an invitation to shine.

I started bringing snacks. I smiled. I joked. I tried, intentionally to show up with light, even when the journey itself was heavy.

Along the way, I fell. Sometimes physically, but more often emotionally.

I started hearing the same question again and again: How do you keep showing up strong? How do you stay positive?

What I thought was simply an outlet for processing what I had been through slowly became something else. An idea. A nudge. The beginning of website I would start, abandon, and restart on repeat. None of it ever felt quite right.

And one word kept surfacing: Testify

I knew it was from God.

Songs with that exact theme would play on the radio-no matter how hard I tried to change the station. And if I’m honest, sharing my own story has never come easily to me. Small pieces in the moment, maybe. Vulnerability on purpose…no.

For a long time, I let my health be the reason I stayed out of church. But life was growing heavy in more ways than one. Alongside my health struggles, my family boundaries were being tested. My mother’s health was declining. After more than a year of no contact, I suddenly began receiving calls asking me to come to her rescue-sometimes while I was sitting and receiving medical care myself.

When Best Friend- my husband-suggested trying a new church, I wasn’t excited. It was large. And I would be noticeable with a walker.

But God has a way of softening even the most determined resistance.

I agreed to attend one service.

I don’t remember much of the sermon, but I would have sworn the pastor had intimate knowledge of my life. I felt the Spirit so deeply that I cried. During the final song, there was an alter call. My husband asked if I wanted to go up for prayer.

I didn’t.

And yet- I felt a push. Almost as if someone behind me nudged me forward. Suddenly, I was walking toward the front.

That walk-maybe a hundred feet-felt endless in a crowd, with a walker. My conversation with God sounded something like this:

I don’t know why I’m going up. I don’t even know where I’m supposed to go. I’m almost there-you’re going to have to tell me the next step because I cannot kneel in front of all these people.

At the front, I saw a woman already kneeling and crying. Others were around her praying already.

I’m not naturally social, or at least I wasn’t then. But I knew without question, that she needed love. It became clear that I wasn’t there to embarrass myself, I was there for her.

Before long, I was on my knees beside her, my hand on her back, praying. I didn’t know her story, but God did. God knew she needed someone outside her own circle to pray over her, to remind her that she was loved.

We began attending church regularly after that. I was still wrestling with understanding everything. And strangely, the harder I tried to stay positive, the heavier it all felt.

Nothing about my story fit the way I thought testimony was supposed to sound.

That changed when I started visiting old gardens-places I once lived, places that had shaped me. As I wrote, I began to see how many times God had been there.

Long before I recognized Him. Long before I fully surrendered.

I can’t clearly answer how I stayed determined, how I made it through, or how I’m still going-without giving praise to the One who put it all together.

I couldn’t write about how to keep going when you want to give up, because I didn’t do anything remarkable. God used people to speak what I couldn’t hear on my own. He used songs to plow through the hardened places in my heart. He even used the hardest situations-the ones that could have caused me to stop completely-to slow me down and make me examine my thoughts with honesty.

What carried me wasn’t willpower. It was faith forming quietly-through love, connection, grace, and presence.

This is why these teachings are rooted where they are. Because I didn’t grow by striving. I grew because God is faithful.