In Praise of Throwing Out Your Back

Credit: Alexander Vilinskyy on Unsplash

Five months pregnant, I was opening a window above our kitchen sink from an awkward angle and—in a maelstrom of pain that shot me straight to the linoleum-–threw out my back. In seconds, my body seemed to age sixty years. Unable to walk, I crawled over our hardwood floors like the baby wriggling in my womb would someday soon. My mom lent me my late Grandpa’s walker, and, with great concentration and monkish slowness, made tedious steps from the bed to the couch to the bathroom and back. 

While I would never wish this debilitating sprain on anyone and did everything I could to heal (which, paradoxically, was doing as much of nothing as possible), the gifts amidst the pain struck me with such force that I entitled a Word document “What having a bad back has taught me.”

One gift was the grace of rest. Like many pregnant women, I struggled with shattering fatigue. Many urged me to give my body pause in its divinely-breathed labor of crafting a human being. But I resisted rest. As a teacher transitioning to virtual instruction during the 2020 pandemic lockdown, I deemed naps indulgent. I would strain to keep up with the grueling workload, force myself on long walks despite dizziness. On our babymoon, my husband and I hiked a thousand feet up to Vernal Falls and again to Cathedral Lake. 

But my sprained back broke my ambition.

Newly humbled, I had to submit to the gracious tyranny of pain—and the gracious care of others. As my husband helped me shuffle to the bathroom or shift to a sitting position, I realized my dependence on Christ animate through the bodies of others. 

And others, seeing my need, received the opportunity to give, and to be blessed and shaped in the giving. Soon after hearing about my back, my mom alighted on our doorstep with sacks of meals. One meal would have been a more than reasonable kindness. But bringing meals to last weeks embodied the exuberant, superabundant generosity of God. For years, I’ve kept a Post-It note listing all she brought:

Pot roast with carrots, onions, and potatoes

Cheeseburger cups

Hamburger Helper

Tacos with lettuce, tomato, meat, chips, and wraps 

Fettuccine alfredo with chicken and broccoli

Rice, beans, tomatoes, sauce, and tortillas

Asian chopped salad

French loaf pizza 

Veggie burgers

Quesadillas with cheese, chicken, or taco meat

The list has been a kind of ebenezer, or a prayer of thanksgiving.  Savoring my mother’s meals or seeing my pain mirrored in my husband’s eyes showed me how lavishly I was loved. As a woman just months away from holding her first baby, I needed to know this truth.

While I rested, time seemed to slow, as if the planets had relaxed their pace around the sun. I could notice the whorls in our wood floors, the motes of dust anointed in light, the perfect tracery of veins in my hands. Like a very old woman or a very new baby, I could be still and attend to the flourishing of gifts abundant in the quiet of ordinary days.

Almost any movement was painful, forcing me to move with the lax grace of a sloth. Each centimeter of motion required intense concentration: one uncontrolled flinch could push me into the abyss. Toeing the verge of acute pain, I attended to the subtle gradations of the most ordinary acts: bending over the basin to press water over my face, shifting my body in bed, lifting a book. 

Pain gave me a hyper-awareness of the miracle of embodied motion, startled me awake to the gift of all the fantastical processes that, most days, dance seamless and unseen.

Had I ever really noticed my body’s incredible facility for motion? Had I ever acknowledged the ease of gliding through the day’s steps: walking, dressing, washing? Even now, how little I comprehend the precise orchestration of muscle, tendon, bone, cell, nerve serving me with silent obeisance!

My brief bout with back pain also gave me a glimpse into the lives of people who have disabilities or suffer chronic pain or hold many decades in their bones. Experiencing, however fleetingly, the need for a walker helped me (oh, I dearly hope) to grow in compassion towards those who suffer daily in their bodies—and in respect for their resilience and courage.

Little by little, one imperceptible stitch at a time, God wove my body back together.

Remembering that past pain challenges me in how I live now: to move through the day—this day the Lord has made—in gratitude. Grabbing an apple from the refrigerator, pouring  a glass of water, slipping on socks, opening a letter, scrubbing a plate, rotating a steering wheel, ascending stairs, holding my son, resting in my husband’s embrace—all is grace, grace, grace, an upholding by the God Who Holds All Things Together.

Though pain expresses the essential brokenness of the world, God, in outlandish mercy, deigns to redeem it. And for this, I give thanks.

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This series is inspired by my upcoming book In Praise of Houseflies: Meditations on the Gifts in Everyday Quandaries (Calla Press), slated for release August 19th! Click here to join my e-letter for more quiet reflections, book updates, and a few of my favorite things!