I had a stroke at thirty-eight. Everything went sideways. Physical therapy was brutal, and halfway through, I stopped. I decided I'd be disabled, I'd accept it, move on. My spiritual director said, 'But you're not persevering.' I thought she meant in the physical therapy, but she meant in prayer.
She asked me if I'd stopped asking God to heal me. I had - I'd moved to acceptance without actually bringing my longing to God. That felt like maturity at the time, but she was saying something different. Persevering isn't about bugging God with the same request. It's about maintaining conversation with God through the entire long obedience of recovery.
I started praying differently - not 'heal me,' but 'stay with me in this,' 'help me see what you're doing,' 'teach me what I need to learn.' Three years later, I have significant function back, though not full recovery. But the recovery wasn't the main thing that changed. My relationship with God deepened in a way it never could have if everything had just snapped back to normal.
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