If anyone ever tells you it would be fun to do the “leap of faith” off of Shark’s Fin–a thirty-foot-deep chasm in between two giant boulders in Carmen Serdan, Mexico–don’t.
I mean, you can if you want.
But only do it if you’re really tall. Or have hops. Or something.
The two guys I was with at Shark’s Fin jumped the gap just fine since they had mile-high legs and were over six feet tall. They told me I didn’t have to do it, but I knew I’d probably never have the opportunity to take this leap of faith again.
So I took a running start…
Made the jump…
And landed it.
…On my face.
I could not stop laughing.
But the guys on the other side just stood wide-mouthed staring at my foot.
“Are you ok?” they called out.
I guess I had rolled my ankle.
So we hiked back down with a little extra effort and wrapped my foot up in a brace.
Then the next week while in Mazatlan, Mexico, as I was doing flips on the roof, I slammed that same foot into the ground. Shocks ran up through my ankle.
Now it really hurt.
Several people that we met, when they saw me limping, would stop to pray for my ankle. But no matter how many times people prayed, it never got any better.
In fact, it began to hurt a little more.
It was taking me three times as long to get anywhere I was going. And it was frustrating. One of the guys on our team who used to work in a hospital even said I would need to see a doctor when we arrived back stateside.
More and more people prayed for healing for my ankle, and I began to resent it every time.
Because why wasn’t it working? Why wasn’t God healing me?
On our last night of outreach, I gathered our team for a meeting to debrief a bit of our time in Mexico.
We worshiped and laughed and told stories and shared where we were “at” personally; we also asked God about his perspective on our time in Mexico.
At the end of our meeting, the team offered to pray for my ankle.
I was kind of over it.
By now it was hurting more than it had our entire trip, and I had resolved to suck it up until I could see a doctor back in Wisconsin. I would have to hobble in order to navigate our three layovers the next day, but that was just how it was going to have to be.
I shrugged. “Go ahead.”
They prayed and declared healing over my ankle. Yet when I stood up to test it out, nothing felt different. I wasn’t exactly surprised. So I simply smiled and told them thank you before we dispersed to go to bed.
The next morning after hurriedly packing my bags for the trip home, I ran downstairs to grab breakfast before it was gone. I made conversation with some other YWAMers who were sitting at the same table as I wolfed down a bowl of cereal and–
WAIT.
Did I run down the stairs?
I could not believe it. I tried to retrace my steps after our meeting last night. Nothing had seemed different; I had gone to bed and could hardly sleep on the bare floor because of the pain, and then I woke up and–
God had completely healed my ankle.
Through my outreach team.
I was blown away.
And I knew that God had been waiting for the perfect timing–to use the very people on my own team to heal me and to show me that even when I doubted, nothing was impossible for Him all along.