Heart Over Hustle: Back Surgery (part one)

When visiting local churches, we are often asked to share a testimony. Surprisingly for an extrovert like myself, I often shrink back and let someone else take the spotlight. But, I want to glorify God in all that He is doing and all that He has done. After all, these stories aren’t about us, but how He is glorified through us. These testimonies are drenched in vulnerability; real, honest and familiar in a way that is both comforting and a little uncomfortable (like facing the truth can be).

In this, I have found truth-telling to be contagious and slightly addictive. So, I’m letting you in, too; starting with the story of reconstructive spinal surgery. A story where the Lord transformed exhaustion to peace, isolation to connection, and hustling to presence, all while putting some titanium rods and screws in my back. A story where I rewrote my identity as not what I do but simply who I am.

Let’s be honest: defining ourselves by what we do is wildly unstable; what happens when we can’t do the thing anymore? Or if we’re no longer good at it? Our identity becomes our failure, knocked down by a feather. Who are you when all that you can produce and manage is gone?

So, here I was: wildly unstable as everything I knew was being swept out from under my feet. But, no one ever changes until the pain level gets high enough. And let me tell you, I was there.

Rewind: I did gymnastics all my life. When I was 13, I experienced shooting pain down my back. Without any x-rays or images, my doctor told me that I strained the erector spinae muscles in my back and should take 12 ibuprofen a day for three weeks and then I’d be good to get my booty back in the gym. As young as I was, and never having been seriously injured before (minus some sprained ankles, concussions and broken pinkies, but what gymnast hasn’t had those?), I trusted him. When the three weeks passed, I went back to my routine of training up to 20 hours a week, compromising my social life for the exhilaration of the flips and tricks I could force my body to do.

Even after the absurd number of painkillers that tried to mask the pain, avoid the problem and only address the symptoms, I was still in excruciating pain.

Not wanting to accede to being ‘weak’, I competed the entire season under the mantra ‘no pain, no gain’. When I finally couldn’t take it anymore, I went to Seattle Children’s Hospital for an x-ray. I was gently sat down to be told that I had fractured a vertebra in two, and the piece that had broken off shifted out of alignment (spondylolisthesis, for my medically inclined friends). Gymnastics was no longer my future and the gym no longer sheltered my identity.

I now wore a hard-shell back brace; and if you can imagine the embarrassment of my high-school-teenager-with-an-attitude-self wearing baggy t-shirts in a sad attempt to guise the plastic corset keeping me upright, then you’ve got it. Every time I hunched over to write, it stuck out near the nape of my neck; when we ran the mile in P.E. class, I had to quietly explain that I couldn’t run and instead snuck out; when it got warmer outside, I still had to wear my oversized clothes to hide the buckles and straps keeping me all in place.

That was the abrupt ending to my gymnastics career, and what slowly became the beginning of my life in dance.

In college, I majored in dance and found joy in moving my body again; this time with a lot less pounding and impact and with a lot more structure and alignment. It was all fun and games until I was a sophomore in college, 18 years old, and I hit rock bottom again.

This time, I couldn’t walk more than a mile, sit for more than an hour, or carry my own backpack.

I was miserable, but I was stubborn. I was strong, tough and responsible; and I let those words, that would never lead to life and wholeness, define me.

Here’s the hard truth: nobody was forcing me to live this way.

I thought self-care was for the fragile. I grew up on the notion of ‘no pain, no gain’ and ‘the show must go on’. I mean, have you seen gymnasts with blisters on their hands from the uneven bars? Or ballerinas with bruises on their feet from pointe?

Among the many factors that inevitably led to back surgery, one of the prominent ones was undeniably my own belief that hard work can solve anything. I believed that pushing through is always the right thing; and that rest and slowness are signs of weakness, not qualities of high-capacity people like myself.  

So, I did my diligent research. I tried physical therapy, acupuncture, steroids, chiropractors, and what felt like everything under the sun, with no such luck. I had conditioned myself to be obedient and disciplined, making it far too easy to injure my body and soul in the name of a good cause, but I was at a loss.

Let me be honest: this mentality expanded much further than the walls of the gym or the mirrors of the dance studio. I started filling my time by proving myself: through volunteer positions, jobs, internships, anything. I thought, sure, you can take away gymnastics and now dance, but I will still prove myself successful. I will prove that I can stand the hustle.

I thought the constant motion would save me and that I could outrun myself to safety. I craved the fast-paced, breakneck way of living and it became the veil I hid myself behind. I believed that my body and spirit weren’t worth listening to and trusted the myth that busyness and achievement would take away the pain.

Here’s the hard truth: you don’t have to put yourself to the side to maintain reputation as a high-capacity person. You actually don’t have to be the strongest of the strong.

I had become well acquainted with the hustle, almost to the point that I worshiped at the altar of my to-do list, ignoring the crying out of my body like it just needed some salt rubbed in it. I had become a master of to-do lists at the expense of my sanity. The downfall was that the hustle never satisfied – the more I pushed and persevered, the more I was left exhausted and resentful, but with a few boxes checked off that list.

Sure, I loved the jobs and internships and volunteering, but that sliver of joy made it really easy to neglect huge chunks of my life, huge chunks of my sanity and peace… or lack thereof. On paper, it was impressive. I always wanted to say ‘yes’ to the next thing; I wanted to help and was honored to be asked, but I had a warped idea in my mind that if there’s fruit, it must be God’s will. The public fruit masked the private wreckage.

Here’s the thing: your calling is not defined only by the fruit provided to the Kingdom.

As a Christian and especially as a woman, I have been taught to give and give, to pour myself out tirelessly, and in that, ignore my own body and pain on behalf on the Kingdom. It took years to understand that my very self is included in the Kingdom. I am not building the Kingdom if my work, as fruitful as it may seem, is destroying this very member of the Kingdom: myself.

I wasn’t thriving, but I was wildly productive, and it never occurred to me to stop. I was fluent in structure, discipline and responsibility. I sought after an impossible standard to meet, a frantic way of living and a practice of ignoring my body and spirit in order to prove myself; but to whom?

I was chasing a rat race of success, only to be left isolated and with no end in sight. I was using the race as a façade to evade the feeling that I constantly had to prove myself and earn my spot. I couldn’t separate my craft from my identity.

Each ‘yes’ I said to a job or volunteer opportunity or even a friend who needed help, I said ‘no’ to groundedness, peace, and rest. The ‘yes’ instigated a shallow, exhausted, and frantic lifestyle, with little resemblance to the deep and brave ‘yes’ I was searching for. I was trying to prove my worth even though my worth had been set in stone since the beginning of time. I was done trying to play God, to covering up my own pain and ready to put myself back together.

I finally said the ultimate ‘yes’ – the brave choice to sit in the pain when I wanted to leave, to feel the truth when I wanted to grab an ice pack and change the subject. I became brave even if it looked like I became boring.

I started to reject the myth that every day was a new chance to prove my worth. I started to believe the truth that my worth is inherent, given by God, and my heart triumphs the hustle. I am wildly imperfect and weak and flawed in a thousand different ways, but still worthy of love simply because I am a child of the King.

The hard truth: nothing I do will ever make God love me less. And, nothing I ever do will make God love me more.

So, I knew I needed to have back surgery. Yes, so I could walk more than a mile, sit for more than an hour, and carry my own backpack. But also, so I could take a step back and leave behind busyness and exhaustion for healing and rest.

I chose to silence the chaos: the noise around and within me. I chose to plant my identity not in what I produce, but the sheer yet steady fact that I have been created by the hands of a holy God, like every other thing on this earth, equally worthy and equally loved.

So, I surrendered. I held up my white flag. After years of trying to hide the pain, it indubitably imploded. I surrendered my pride, my schedule, my positions and successes. I surrendered my ability to ever walk again, knowing that with such an invasive surgery, it was surely on the line.

The physical suffering had distracted the emotional suffering. And eventually, it had to end. September 15, 2015, I had reconstructive spinal surgery.

Join me in prayer: Lord, thank you. Thank you for your grace amid the carelessness of the body and soul you’ve given me. Let my life become what You intended it to be: a living sacrifice offered only to You. Amen.