In Psalm 139, David says, “O LORD, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.” These words are comforting for the weary soul, but for Ciara Dierking, they have also become words to live by as she chooses to walk in faith each day.
Ciara finds herself sitting quite a bit ever since she fell sick and underwent losing both her arms and legs in order for her to recover. Reflecting on this psalm, she said, “Funny enough, I think we all feel this — nobody really knows how hard it is. I get jealous of people walking, but when I read that verse, I thought, God knows. He knows when I sit down. He knows I’ve been sitting forever. And He sees me when I stand up in my prosthetic legs and I’m struggling. He knows us that well.”
Ciara is originally from upstate New York and has three younger siblings. She was homeschooled until attending Bob Jones University in 2010. Her family moved down to South Carolina, where she met her husband, David, and the two married in 2012. They now live in Rock Hill, S.C., with their two young boys, Jackson and Colton.
But life looks differently for them now than it did a few years ago. In 2023, Ciara and her family traveled to Pennsylvania to visit family for Christmas. Life felt like it was getting easier with her oldest boy starting school. They had a great trip up, and Ciara remembers swimming in the pool at their hotel. Not long afterward, her youngest, Colton, started feeling unwell and developed severe neck pain. His symptoms led the family to the emergency room on Dec. 26. Colton was diagnosed with severe cases of strep throat and coronavirus, as well as abscesses on his neck that were pressing against his vertebrae. After three weeks, Colton was able to be released on his birthday.
However, Ciara’s story unfolded differently. She started feeling sick not long after Colton became ill. While the family helped the nurses wheel him through the hospital, Ciara became so weak that she lay beside him on the stretcher. Leaving David with Colton, she decided to go to her in-laws’ home and rest. Two days later, her mother-in-law drove her back to the hospital after Ciara spent a long night struggling to sleep and breathe. She entered the emergency room having never been seriously ill or undergoing surgery. Shortly after arriving, Ciara was sent straight to the ICU. The nurses spoke of intubating her, and then she simply remembers being put to sleep. Ciara remained unconscious for a few weeks after being diagnosed with influenza B, group A strep, and severe pneumonia. When toxins entered her bloodstream, her body went into septic shock. Doctors did not know whether she would survive.
Her husband, David, sat faithfully by her side during that time. Soon, Ciara woke up. She would wonder where she was and what was happening, he would tell her, then she would fall back asleep — forgetting all over again. Her parents and extended family drove up to come see her — even though she couldn’t talk — but that way someone was always with her in the hospital room. After six weeks, doctors transferred her to a hospital in Charlotte, N.C. — still unaware that she had been without arms and legs since January.
Ciara eventually ended up in a long-term acute care hospital where she was learning how to get off her ventilator. At one point, Ciara had holes in her lungs, which the doctors used a rubber band to seal off. So, saying goodbye to the ventilator was a very strange experience and took all of seven weeks. “Real air felt so heavy,” Ciara said. Later, she went to physical rehabilitation for a month. Then finally, after 168 days, she came home.
Ciara’s first day home was wonderful — surrounded by people who loved her and everyone celebrating. However, the next day was not the same. Home was the finish line, but she soon realized she was no longer able to do the same things she used to. She realized David was now the doctor and the nurse. She had trouble sleeping at night from being uncomfortable. Ciara feared that she wouldn’t be able to parent and that she wouldn’t be the same wife to David — worried that it would be too much for him. She was physically present now, but inwardly devastated. She wasn’t sure if life was worth living anymore.
Ciara’s story of faith first began when she was five years old. Her mother was teaching junior church as they were discussing heaven and hell. At that point, Ciara shared that she wanted to be saved in order to not go to hell. When she was 30, her view of her faith began to alter. She was reading a book her mom had given her that said we deserved God’s wrath. As she continued to read Scripture, Ciara realized she may have harbored a lot of pride and perfectionism before, thinking she was worthy of salvation if she was a “decent” person on the outside. She noticed her faith looked a lot like the Pharisees. Before getting sick, Ciara described herself as an independent person. She and David were pull-yourself up-by-your-bootstraps kind of people — thinking they had the day-by-day things and God would handle eternity.
However, after coming home from the hospital, Ciara and David both have a very different view of things. It became obvious day after day that they could no longer do anything relying on just themselves.
“Learning that I have to say, ‘God, I’m gonna need help today,’ and surrendering my will to His each day, because there’s still a lot of days that I wish things were different. I wish that this was not the story — but it’s a real action of surrendering daily,” Ciara said, “But I also see the benefit of trusting God day to day, because I felt a lot of pressure before that I’d almost have to save my kids or sanctify David. Stuff that wasn’t my responsibility now is more obvious that I’m not in control of these things. These are things I bring to God through prayer, and I have to trust that He is gonna do what needs to be done.”
Ciara and David found themselves also being supported by their friends and family. Their pastor’s family had taken in Jackson and Colton, alongside their own four children. Another family helped with homeschooling. Their church supported them with meals, yard work, financial needs, and even helping install an elevator in their house.
Ciara had been reading Choosing Gratitude by Nancy DeMoss on the ride up to Pennsylvania just before she got sick. Gratitude became a life preserver for her during and after her hospital experience — seeking ways to find the goodness of God around her. While learning to be off the ventilator, David would help her find three things to be grateful for each day — even while in a hospital room. When at home afterwards, Ciara would complain about her prosthetic arms. She had dropped a bottle of lotion all over the floor once, quickly wishing she had her real arms, and then that night her prosthetic arms broke — which had never happened before. She soon found herself missing her prosthetic arms. “This was a lesson where God said, ‘You’re grumbling about your arms when you could be grateful for them,'” Ciara said.
While being home for a few years now, Ciara recalled her biggest doubt was that God wasn’t truly good. The idea of a prosperity gospel still made sense in her heart — that if you are serving the Lord, then things will go well for you. While in her hospital bed, she would ask others to read the Bible to her. She would pray, “God, help my unbelief,” because her feelings were telling her she would never do something like that to any of her children. Ciara yearned for belief but also found herself with questions.
In the hospital, when Ciara couldn’t help but cry, her mentor would tell her, “Ciara, I want you to remember that God is good.” When she came home from the hospital, she prayed for a year that God would help her to believe He is good.
“The next year I was saying, ‘God is good.’ Sometimes I was saying it while crying, but with a little bit of faith. Then this year, I feel like God has just been showing me more of what His goodness is,” Ciara said, “It’s kind of hard — you would think His goodness would be providing a comfortable life, but I’m learning now that His goodness is … when trials come He’s still with you in it, and He’s helping you through it. So His goodness is His nearness. The three persons of the Trinity are all working for our good. The Holy Spirit is groaning for us when we can’t say the prayers we want to say. Jesus is praying for us, advocating for us before the Father. He understands all our sorrows. God the Father is collecting our tears in His bottle. It’s not going unnoticed, and that’s meant so much to me. The nearness of God is what’s good.”