Thanking God for a defect

I'm thanking God this week that I have one leg shorter than the other.

It all started with a nocturnal hip ache after I had Nathanael. Sleeping with a pillow between my legs fixed it, but immediately after giving birth to Luke, it came back, worse. It wasn't bad pain; more annoying. I supposed birth had pushed my hips a bit out of alignment, and so it crossed my mind that was probably something a chiropractor could fix. It took several weeks for me to talk myself into going; I halfway thought the mild ache wasn't enough to justify the expense, but the fact that I personally know a chiropractor (one of my husband's former Bible students) and the thought that it may become less fixable with time pushed me to make an appointment. I came just complaining of the hip ache, but he of course also asked me about various other areas. He asked if I have tension in my back, and I said, "Sure, I get stress-related knots." He asked if I ever get pain in my mid-back, and I happened to think then that yes, it does hurt when I wear the baby in a sling. I remembered that it got to where it hurt when Nathanael was 10 months old or so, and was surprised it started hurting when Luke was just 6 weeks old, though I just assumed it must be that I wasn't doing the sling quite correctly.

With the exam and X-rays, he found that the hip ache is due to my left leg being 11mm shorter than my right. It puts my hips out of alignment, and so has actually been wearing on them most of my life. Giving birth was just the first thing to aggravate it enough for me to notice. "Most people who have this and don't get it corrected eventually need a hip replacement," he told me.

But then he showed me the X rays of my back, and I was stunned. The tension and ache that I had thought was totally normal was a sign of vertebral subluxation complex all through my spine--my lower and mid back have lateral curvature, and my neck has lost its normal curve. This was almost certainly caused by years of heavy laptop use, and especially the setup I'd improvised to nurse and work at the same time, sitting in a recliner and reaching over to my laptop at an angle. He showed me on the charts how this complex leads to premature arthritis, bulging disks, vertebrae fusing together, and all kinds of nasty stuff. My mid-back has already developed two small bone spurs, but the doctor assured me that the rest of the problem is still completely correctable. So the next few months will be marked by new ergonomic furniture and many trips to Lubbock. He also warned me that as we began treatment, I would feel worse before I feel better, and that had certainly been the case. It's still not too bad, but the added discomfort reinforces the shock realizing just how much trouble I was headed for.

It's struck me that, if it were not for my legs being different lengths, leading to the hip pain, I would have ignored the back tension until it progressed to real pain, and by then I would have had permanent damage.

If you compare my first couple of years writing this blog with this past year, you probably notice a change in attitude. The enthusiasm and big dreams have been almost jaded as I think back at how many failures we've had. I don't write much about the disappointments, because I'd rather share the things we rejoice and hope for, but, with news that the app we hoped would fund the ministry has been out-competed before we got our first customer and that schools are too worried about getting computers to stay in business to hear about new curriculum and certification, I really began to wonder, "Is this it? Are we never going to get the results we've prayed for? Did we make too many mistakes, so many that the enemy won this battle? Is it time to look for something else?" Then this issue at the chiropractor's told me that God knew the mistakes that I would make in how I would position my body, and gave me that leg discrepancy to give me a warning to correct it before it was too late. If He did that, then how can I not believe that He knew all the mistakes TEN3 and our partners would make, and made provision for those too?

Anthony's latest conversation with me about the future of TEN3 curriculum was likewise encouraging. Since Kenneth and I plan to homeschool using the classical model, pulling in other elements we have come to see as important, Anthony asked, "Can I just adapt what you do and get schools started with it?" Well, I think that may be more difficult than he is bargaining for, but it probably can be done. We are still running our programs in Nigeria, Zambia, and Tanzania, but I couldn't see what more steps we could take to get educators discipled strongly enough to take it "to the third generation" as we've always envisioned.

So maybe all the trial and error along the way was God geting us to this point, where I am advancing the most important sector of transformational education--children's level--by doing just a little more than I would be doing anyway in educating my own children. Keep praying for us.