It should have been simple. Get the surgeon to dig out the verruca in my heel and get back to pain free exercise. Yet even as I hobbled around on my crutches it returned, this time on the other foot. Like an insidious parasite it grew and grew, bigger and meaner than before. It was impossible to ignore. Every step forced it into the surrounding nerves, sending the defiant message to my brain: I'm here to stay.
One Sunday morning at church, I asked the elders to pray. Nothing miraculous happened. One of them advised: “It doesn't matter whether you see any change or not. We've asked God and he has heard our prayers. Now it's important to thank him every day for healing your foot.”
Every day for the next three months I put my hand on my foot and thanked God for healing it. Every day the verruca grew bigger and deeper.
Running was painful but I refused to give up – both the running and my faith that one day God would heal me. Three or four times a week I ran and prayed – for my husband, my family, my friends, the world. Always at four kilometres, half-way up the big hill, I would get around to the subject of my foot.
“Lord, thank-you for healing my foot but... when are you going to do it? What else do I need to do?”
No answer. It went on for weeks. One day, at four kilometres, half-way up the big hill, I asked the same old question: “Lord, thank-you for healing my foot but... when are you going to do it? What else do I need to do?”
You need to write a letter to your mother and say you are sorry for the things you did at university.
What a weird thought! Writing a letter wouldn't get rid of a verruca. It must have been my imagination. The next day I asked the same question and got the same answer. For three or four days it went on: the same question and the same answer. Could it really be God speaking to me? That nasty verruca had tormented me for the past ten years – ever since university. Could there be a connection? I decided to write the letter.
The next morning I sat down with a blank piece of paper and a mind to match. “Okay Lord, you'll have to help me write.” I wrote the letter like an observer: fascinated, yet convicted by the words that came. I apologised to my mum for my rebellious behaviour at university – how it had hurt her and how it had affected my younger sister. It had never occurred to me before: that my choices, the example I set, had hurt so many others. I had always thought it was my life, my business, nobody else's. With a repentant heart I posted the letter to my mother.
The day after I posted the letter I turned my foot over, as usual, to dab on wart remover. But this time something was different. Tiny blood vessels had popped up on the verruca – in the shape of a smiley face! I laughed out loud. Was this God's sense of humour? Or was it my wild imagination? I said nothing to anyone. Over the next three weeks the verruca gradually disappeared. It seemed such a natural process, and yet it most definitely had a super added in front of the natural!
And the letter to my mum? She never received it. God didn't need her to read it. He just needed me to write it!