I just want to be normal,” I whispered to a friend, tears streaming down my face, as we walked down the long hall of Methodist Hospital. This was the beginning of a long journey that would change me forever. At the time I thought it would leave me physically changed forever, but little did I know God was going to spiritually change me forever.

When I was 14, I began visiting doctors because of severe back pain. I was soon diagnosed with scoliosis, curvature of the spine. Over the years, the pain grew worse, and my doctor told me I needed to have corrective surgery. They would attach two rods with 16 screws to my spine to straighten it and to untwist my ribcage. “This is one of the most painful surgeries a person can experience,” my doctor said. I told my parents I would rather spend one year of my life in extreme pain than the rest of my life in the pain that limited my doing so many things.

While I was attending RP International 2004, I began to get very nervous about my surgery and to think about how painful it was going to be. I experienced some of my greatest presurgery pain there and was reminded of my surgery with almost every person I talked to. But it was amazing how many people cared. I felt like I was coming to a pause in my life, but Becky Magill told me that God was calling me to suffer, and that just because what I was going to go through was not the “normal” thing to do, it did not mean God was putting my life on hold for a year. “You are going to learn things you would in no other way learn, and you are going to grow in closeness with Jesus Christ that you would in no other way experience,” she said to me.

God used 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 to prepare me for this year of suffering: “Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

I realized that God was going to give me a gift and blessing through this suffering. I was quite honored that God wanted to teach me so much and at such a young age. My number one prayer request going into surgery was that God would be glorified.

After my surgery, while still in the recovery room, I woke up before my parents were allowed in the room. My face was so swollen from surgery that my eyes were swollen shut. Everything seemed black. I asked my nurse for something, and he said he would be right back. I felt like he was gone for a long time, so I started calling out for help. “Can someone help me? Can anyone hear me? Please, I just need some help.”

After what seemed like forever, I decided to call for my parents. Finally, a nurse turned to me and said, “Your parents can’t come in for another hour and ten minutes.” She turned back to her work and didn’t respond when I started asking her for help. I felt scared and alone, and I was completely helpless.

Eventually, my nurse returned and I decided to ask him for two things, thinking if I did that he would realize I really did need help. He said to me, “Look, I can only do one thing at a time.”

I gave up seeking any human help, feeling even more scared and alone. I began calling out to God. “Lord, please hear me! I’m so scared and alone and it’s so dark. I’m completely helpless and cannot depend on anyone else. Please hear my cry and be near me; give me comfort.”

Just then, all the verses I had read so many times before my surgery and had memorized in preparation began coming into my mind. I began quoting Psalm 23:4, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: For thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.” I felt a complete sense of peace come over me. I felt like God was near me, and I fell back asleep.

Through incredible pain and weakness, I learned complete dependence on God. I learned to walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh. But that wasn’t the end. For months following surgery, I was completely weak and in the greatest pain I have experienced. While being so weak, I felt at times like I was useless and faced some of my greatest fears.

For my quiet times I read the book of Job. One night, I prayed that God would keep me from getting sick to my stomach (that was one of my greatest fears because of my back and the pain it would cause). I told God that if He allowed me to get sick I would not get angry at Him or curse Him. That night, I suffered from narcotic overdose and spent the night violently sick. While I was walking around the house with my dad trying to settle my stomach, I got sick again and fell to the floor. I began crying out, “I want to die, I want to die!” My dad was holding me in his arms, and I begged him not to leave me. My parents watched me with fear and helplessness, not knowing what to do. Then, I remembered what I had prayed to God just a few hours before. I said to Him, “Lord I am not angry at you, and I will not curse you. I am at the lowest point of my life, but You will give me strength.” I realized that being sick had not hurt my back at all. That was the last time I got sick.

Over the next few days, I began to recover from the medicine overdose and to gain strength. I was grateful to God for the grace He had given me.

Jared Olivetti, the associate pastor of my church, helped my family and me through this time. He came to visit me every week for months. He always helped to keep me encouraged and to keep my attitude right before God. He asked me one day if I felt like I had lost my identity. I answered that I did feel that way, as before I had always been active with school, work, and church. I always felt happy and cheerful, something that I didn’t feel as much anymore.

He said to me, “If someone loses their job, and they are upset about it and feel like they’ve lost their identity and they just won’t be the same person anymore, then you know they had found their identity in their job and not in Christ, where it should be. It seems like God has kind of stripped you of everything you had before, maybe to help you realize where your true identity lies. And if you now find your identity in Christ, then when you go back to having those things you had before, you will not find your identity in them, but always in Christ, because He is the foundation of who you are.”

There were times in my weakness that I felt useless, but I have realized that God works in us and through us even in our lowest points. “The weakness, the trials, and the suffering are not some divine mistake, but crucial parts of God’s plan” (David Paul Tripp).

This year has not been a pause in my life. Instead, it has been the most life-changing time. You cannot suffer and come away unchanged, and by the grace of God that change will be spiritual. He has taken me through the fire to refine and purify me, and for that I am grateful.

I’m thankful for a loving family and church, who were called to help me through my suffering. They bore their calling well. I’m thankful for the unified body of Christ throughout the world who faithfully prayed. I am thankful for God Almighty who said, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). My faith and trust in God have been strengthened, and I have gained an understanding for things I would not have gained if I had not suffered. I pray I will be able to use that understanding for the encouragement of others and for God’s glory.