Walking Through the Fire

Walking Through the Fire

Choosing the Pain of Change Over the Risk of Staying the Same

After fifteen years of living with chronic pain, the choice was no longer whether I would suffer, but how.

I had two choices.

I could continue living as I had for years, managing pain caused by cervical stenosis and ongoing nerve compression, adapting my life around it, and hoping the degeneration of my spine did not progress any further.

Or I could choose the pain of change.

By the time the decision was in front of me, my cervical spine had become unstable. The narrowing of my spinal canal had progressed to the point where a fall, a car accident, or even whiplash could have resulted in permanent spinal cord damage or paralysis. Surgery was no longer optional. It was the only way to stop the degeneration, stabilize my neck, and possibly relieve some of the pain I had been living with for a long time.

I chose to walk through the fire.

A multi-level anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF), a major cervical spine surgery to relieve pressure on the spinal cord and stabilize the neck, brought everything in my life to a sudden, screeching halt. I went from being fully active to completely incapacitated. No work. No driving. No leaving the house. Forced stillness. Forced dependence. A long, slow recovery I could not rush or control.

When Everything Came to a Halt

The physical reality of this season was intense. Titanium plates and screws now sit in my neck. Nerves were decompressed, and the nerve pain that followed was excruciating. I could not tolerate most pain medication, leaving me to manage on Tylenol alone. My voice was affected, making it difficult to speak. Swallowing was hard. Sitting up took effort. Rest was unavoidable.

But what surprised me most was how much this season tested me mentally and spiritually.

There were moments of real desolation, the kind that comes when you cannot “do” your way out of suffering. When progress is slow. When your usual ways of coping are taken from you. When all you can do is endure.

And then even prayer became difficult.

When I Could Not Pray, Grace Came to Me

During the four days I spent in the hospital, I could barely pray at all.

Between the anesthesia, the sickness from pain medication, the chaos of a city hospital, constant interruptions, alarms, and almost no sleep, I was disoriented and depleted. I could not gather my thoughts, let alone enter into prayer. I felt scattered, weak, and far from the interior stillness I was used to.

And yet, God met me there.

On the third night, a Dominican priest from St. Catherine of Siena came to my room and anointed me with the Anointing of the Sick. On the fourth night, he returned to bring me Holy Communion.

Those visits brought me back to the center.

I was reminded that my faith does not depend on my ability to pray well, think clearly, or feel strong. The Church came to me when I could not reach for her. Christ came to me when I could not go to Him.

What Could Not Be Taken From Me

When I returned home, when the noise quieted, the medications eased, and the days slowed, my interior life returned.

Flat on my back for weeks, unable to lift my head, use my arms, or even speak, I still had my life of prayer. My life in Christ. My daily Rosary. My relationship with the saints. My pleading for their intercession.

Fear did not disappear.

Fear that I would not recover.
Fear that I would never be the same.
Fear of missing my grandchildren grow up.
Fear of everything that could go wrong, even death.

But prayer sustained me.

Not because the fear went away, but because I knew I was not alone.

There was a supernatural peace that carried me when my body was weak and my future uncertain. A peace that did not come from control, reassurance, or answers, but from presence.

When everything else was stripped away, this remained.

And it was enough.

What Suffering Revealed

This season also revealed love in its clearest form.

It showed me how deeply my husband loves me, not in words, but in presence, patience, and quiet faithfulness. It showed me who my real friends are, the ones who prayed, visited, checked in, and stayed close when I had nothing to give in return.

When productivity is stripped away, love becomes unmistakably clear.

What This Season Taught Me About Healing

Healing is not gentle.
It is often painful.
It is slow.
It ebbs and flows.
It is not linear.

Healing requires patience, not passive patience, but courageous patience.
It takes perseverance.
It takes fortitude to endure discomfort without rushing the process.
It requires trust in time, even when we resist its pace.

There are no shortcuts through healing. Only honesty, endurance, and grace.

What This Season Taught Me About Change

Real change is not cosmetic.

Change takes courage, a leap of faith.
A willingness to suffer through the process rather than avoid it.
Humility, the kind that accepts help.
Self-determination, the kind that keeps going when quitting would be easier.
Grit, the kind that stays present when the work is uncomfortable.
And openness, to God, to others, and to becoming someone new.

Avoiding pain does not always protect us.
Sometimes it slowly costs us everything.

The Same Fire, A Different Context

This is the same choice I see people face in mentorship every day. Remain in familiar pain, or walk through the discomfort that leads to real freedom.

Interior work, relational healing, and genuine transformation ask the same things of us that physical healing does. They slow us down. They expose what we would rather avoid. They require patience, courage, humility, and trust.

But on the other side of that fire, physical, emotional, or spiritual, there is often something we could not access any other way. Freedom. Clarity. Deeper love. A new lease on life.

A Different Kind of Return

As I begin to re-enter life and work, I am doing so more slowly and more intentionally.

This season has deepened my conviction that true healing and lasting change do not come from pushing harder. They come from choosing the fire when the time comes and trusting that what waits on the other side is worth it.

Sometimes the fire is not the obstacle.
Sometimes it is the way through.