I used to be a distance runner—emphasis on used to be. I ran cross-country in high school, and I was fast. It was quickly evident that I could help our team attend the state meet for the first time in school history. But then I developed injuries: five stress fractures in my four short years of running.

I did everything in my power to be healed—cross-training in the pool and on a stationary bike, physical therapy, massage therapy, and chiropractic care. I even met with an orthopedic surgeon.

All of this effort meant I was away from the team I was supposed to be leading and encouraging. It was lonely. I joined cross-country not because I loved running (I didn’t), but because I loved the community it offered in the crazy teenage years.

I often wondered why God didn’t heal me. I thought if I were healed, I wouldn’t be so lonely. But I had the wrong idea. As Lydia Brownback puts it in her recent article, “Our problem isn’t God’s failure to heal—it’s our expectation of what that healing should look like.”

Though physical healing remained elusive, the loneliness that came from my injuries drew me closer to Jesus. It pushed me to encourage my teammates through God’s Word instead of by my own ability. And God brought a more important, spiritual healing through time spent with him in his Word.

Looking back, I realize he was training me, spiritually, for the race ahead—a life as his disciple. God used my physical brokenness as the context in which he further healed my soul.

By his grace,