I Think God Was Partnering with Me All Along

June 21, 2026

I Think God Was Partnering with Me All Along

This week, I was on a podcast and during our conversation I ended up recalling a story from almost 15 years ago. I just have to share this with you.

A lady came into my sports medicine practice, and when I met her, she was very confident that I could help her. She had heard about me and knew that this was the place she needed to be. She was more confident than I was.

During her initial assessment, she described a traumatic back injury she sustained in a horseback racing accident the year before. As I was listening to her, I was doubting that I could help her. The back was not my specialty and was one of my least favorite parts of the body to work on at the time.

But because of her confidence in the way she spoke to me about how she located me and my clinic, I leaned in a little more instead of referring her away. I wanted so badly to help her. My heart ached for her long journey and her desire to fully recover.

As I listened to her describe numerous doctor visits, therapy appointments, and countless treatments over the past year with minimal recovery, I could tell she refused to accept that prognosis over her life.

I truly wanted to help her. I wanted her to be completely healed, healthy, and whole—to return to horseback racing someday and live a pain-free life. I remember sitting there as she was speaking, thinking I have no idea what to do, but for some reason I also thought I’d take a chance at helping her.

As I started treatment, which included various manual therapy techniques to address extensive scar tissue, misaligned vertebrae, and muscle imbalances, a weird thing happened to me… Even though I felt like I had no clue exactly what to do, it was as if my hands knew more than my mind did.

I remember only a couple of physical therapy sessions in, this patient reported feeling remarkably better. She was so grateful.

To be honest, I didn’t fully understand why what I was doing was working so well. I knew the science. I knew anatomy. I knew manual therapy. But I couldn’t explain where the confidence, the intuition, or the treatment progression was coming from.

I remember joking a little bit with my colleagues and said, “I guess I’ll fake it till I make it with confidence. I must have taken an exam on that in college, and now it’s just coming into practice.”

What I didn’t know back then was that God was partnering with me.

Unfortunately, I didn’t give Him the credit. I wish I had.

I didn’t consciously invite Him to co-labor with me like I teach now. I didn’t know to ask Him for wisdom in the exam room.

But I do know this: I loved.

I chose to love my neighbor the way Jesus describes in the Good Samaritan parable.

I wasn’t the back expert. The back was one of my least favorite areas to treat. I was a knee specialist. Ninety percent of my patients were ACL reconstruction cases and virtually none were back patients.

But I didn’t let fear stop me.

I didn’t let my area of expertise become a boundary to compassion.

I now believe that when I chose love over fear, God stepped in and filled the gaps in my experience. He led me through every bit of that treatment protocol. Within only a few months, this patient was 100 percent pain free, had her range of motion restored, stability where stability was needed, and mobility where mobility was needed.

I still remember this patient reaching out to me a couple of years later, tears of gratitude in her voice, to tell me she had just delivered a healthy baby, naturally.

She told me she was overwhelmed with gratitude because, a few years earlier, multiple medical professionals had told her that her back injury was so severe she would likely never safely carry a child—let alone give birth.

But after those few months of treatment together, she regained her strength and abilities. She returned to the life she thought she had lost. And she was holding her healthy baby in her arms.

I now wonder if God’s healing power was flowing through my hands and I didn’t even recognize it.

How did this woman go from being told she likely couldn’t safely carry a child to giving birth to a healthy baby?

I don’t know all the answers. But I do now know this:

God was there.

I was in position.

And somehow, in ways I didn’t understand at the time, He partnered with me.

I wish I knew God back then like I do now. I would have shouted it from the rooftops!

Maybe that’s why He’s bringing this memory back to me now.

Now that I have been intentionally partnering with God and learning who He is and who I am through Him, I look back on this memory differently. I believe that patient was healed because I was willing to be in position and God filled in everything I lacked. He filled in where I wasn’t yet experienced. His will of healing this patient’s back happened because I chose to love instead of fear.

This patient’s life trajectory was changed because God led me and I was willing to say yes. I went to church every Sunday, I loved Jesus, but I had no idea God would work through me back then. I did not give Him the glory back then. But, now I know that was all God. I just had to be willing to love “my neighbor” as Jesus describes in the Good Samaritan parable.

I chose to love my patient (my neighbor). I brought the training and experience I had, and God filled in the places where I was lacking. I chose to lead from my heart instead of my fear.

Have you ever found yourself in front of a patient feeling like you had nothing left to offer, yet chose to become a vessel of God’s love instead of turning them away?

And then, what happened?

I’d love to hear your story.

God is so good. Even when we don’t give Him the credit in the moment, His grace will carry us through to the day we get to relive the memory.

Jesus said to him,“ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ”

— Matthew 22:37-39