Walking With Christ

No verse today. Just a prayer request. First a story. It might seem like oversharing on a few things, but it’s necessary for proper context on this request.

My wife is my person. She is my rock and the main source of my motivation. I love her more than life itself. Whether she realizes it or not, our entire relationship has been plagued with attacks from the enemy borne out of generational curses compounded with my own poor decisions. When we started dating in 2004, I had been walking in the wilderness for a number of years. The taboo of sex before marriage wasn’t a thing to me. Needless to say, we got engaged and my birthday gift in March of 2005 was a positive pregnancy test. To my shame, I prayed. I told God that I wasn’t ready and that this child could not live a normal, happy life with me for a parent.

I woke up the next morning with a sense of peace. I found that I had found some joy in the notion that my fiancé, the woman I had fallen in love with, was carrying my child. I began to get excited about the prospect of holding my child. We were already engaged with 10/16/2005 being the chosen date since that was the one year anniversary of when we officially started dating, but the pregnancy almost demanded that we move the date up a bit. We picked 4/22/2005.

The 19th, she started spotting. The 20th, she had a doctor appointment to confirm that we had lost the baby. The 21st, she had the DNC. We still got married on the 22nd despite the painful cloud hanging over our heads. The loss of a child is mentally, emotionally, and spiritually catastrophic. I was still physically capable so I threw myself into my work.

Life slowly moved on. I decided that I needed a better job before we tried to have another child. I started working at Wal-Mart that fall as a cart pusher. The spring of 2006, I was injured on the job. I hadn’t even started to deal with the pain of loss and the damage it did to my new marriage when I lost the one thing I had left. I felt a sharp, stabbing pain in my left side and fell to the ground unable to move my legs. The other workers helped me up and into one of those electric carts. I went to the work comp doctor that was contracted to the stores in that area. He said it was just a pulled muscle and I would be fine in a day or two. I wasn’t. It got worse. His physical therapist told me that I had a dislocated rib and would probably need surgery or some other specialized treatment to get it fixed because of the damage done to the tissues in that area. The doctor disagreed and discharged me. I tried to get another opinion from a different doctor. I was immediately told that I had to go back to the work comp doctor and that they would not touch it.

Things started getting worse. I couldn’t perform simple tasks without it taking my breath away. I couldn’t walk without help for nearly six months. Raising my hands above my shoulders, standing up, rolling over in bed, untying my shoes, coughing, sneezing, breathing too deep, any countless other tasks were always met with extreme pain and loss of breath followed by several minutes of radiating pain. It was debilitating. I went from doctor to doctor trying to get someone to help me. I was always told the same thing. Even after that doctor had closed his office and lost his license, I was always told the same thing. For eleven years, walking from one room of the house to another would wear me out. I would walk to my car to go to work, drive the forty minutes to work, and still have to sit in the parking lot for a few minutes before I could walk to my desk. I’d buried the pain of losing a child and now I was unable to use my physical nature as a means to relieve stress. Emotional eating became my only joy in life so I ballooned up from just over 200 pounds to nearly 400 pounds.

In that time, life moved on. I had gotten that cushy corporate job. We had another child after five years or trying. I had even returned to church after more than a decade on the wilderness. Much of my life had been shuffled to revolve around my limitations. I had adapted to the limits of my body and cut out anything that was beyond my abilities.

Then my sister-in-law suggested that I go to her chiropractor. Josh Vance of Vance Chiropractic in Republic. I had given up hope but was willing to try anything. So, we made the appointment and went in with the expectation that we would hear the same old line.

I’m sure everyone can imagine my face when I told him my story and he simply said it would be ok. I was obviously surprised so I asked him why he didn’t just push me back to the work comp doctor and he just said that all he cared about was getting me back on my feet.

My wife can attest to the yell of pain in that first session and the cartwheel I did in the parking lot afterwards. I could breathe again. I could walk without immediate pain. I had my health back. I was strongly cautioned to not overdo it because of the damage done to the surrounding tissues. The bone was back in place, but the surrounding tissues still had to heal. Plus the weakness in my spine had allowed my spine to curve which would only serve to force the bone out of place once more which would do even more damage.

I spent the next two years in traction four days a week for nearly an hour a day. I slowly began to take back my life. I started going for walks. I went to Silver Dollar City (local amusement park for those who don’t know) and spent the day without being in pain or having to stop every time there was a bench.

Six months after I was released, I was in a wreck that was pretty bad. It would make my spine worse than it had been before I started treatment the first time with the added bonus of brain damage that caused amnesia for a few weeks.

I immediately went back to Dr. Josh. He had fixed me once before, I figured he could do it again. It was him who first noticed some of the changes in my personality. It was him who pushed and got me in to see the doctors who would be able to verify what he was seeing. He was the one who did the hours of research looking for ways to slow down the deterioration that he was seeing. It was him who fought the local medical community and called in many favors to get me the help I needed but couldn’t get. The doctors that I found on my own all said that my problem was that I was just old and fat. It was normal to see this kind of decline in older obese people. I was 36 and in great health other than being overweight. The rest of my numbers and stats looked great despite more than a decade of not being able to walk more than twenty feet at a time without rest.

This man literally saved my life. I owe this man a debt that can’t be repaid.

Now, he is in the middle of his own medical emergency. I don’t know any details. I just know that his office is closed until further notice while they figure out what the future looks like. After all he has done for me, all that God has done through him, I feel helpless right now more than I ever did in the years before.

So, friends, brothers and sisters, I ask for prayers for the man that God used to give me my life back. I ask that everyone join me in a prayer for Dr. Josh Vance.

Father,
You work in mysterious ways to be sure. You work mighty wonders right before our eyes and we barely grasp the edges of the true mystery. Nothing in this life happens without a purpose and nothing is an afterthought to You. No meeting is entirely by chance. I know that You prepared the meeting I had with Dr. Josh many years before we actually met because You knew what impact he would have on my life, the lives of my wife and children, and the kingdom. I know that Dr. Josh is a believer. He is the minister or pastor of a small local church. I know that he and his family know how to call on You in times of need. This is such a time. My heart is heavy with the futility of despair and all I can do it cry out to You in anguish for my friend. Every life has at least a few people who make a profound impact on the course that life takes. Dr. Josh is one of those people for me. Not just me, but for countless others who have been restored to health by You through his hands. Lift him up, Father, because You are the great physician. You are the great healer. Your servant needs Your mercy, love, and grace now in this valley. We ask that You give his family comfort and peace in this time. Give them strength to continue to witness through this. Bless the wonderful crew who work in his office in this season of emotional and financial struggles. Give the care team for him wisdom beyond measure and guide their hands to bring him the recovery that You used him to bring to so many. We sing Your praises through the tears of heartache because we know that You are good and faithful. We know that You are in control and have a plan. We know that, even in this darkness, You are the light that shines on our paths.