Sinners in the Hands of a Healing God

Most generally, I come up with some darn good thinkin' when I am ticked off. Call it a talent (my conflict-management professor calls it a "concern"); I have tremendous mental capacity when someone says something that just gets my craw. Humbleness, poignancy, and reverence, however … those things leave me speechless. And so it is, in my helpless reflections and moments of nothingness … that God speaks.

Many of you realize my daughter spent a week in the hospital. For those of you who have never had this experience, the doctors ask that you hold your child still as tubes, measuring devises, and general pokey-things are used to check vitals and examine "the patient". The burden of holding a child who cannot possibly understand why you would allow this is a heavy one.

Brothers and Sisters, our God is always holding us. And no better than my not yet two year-old daughter can understand why I would allow a nurse to poke and prod her can we understand how God is holding us, all the while allowing human suffering and sadness. If parenting can offer even a glimpse into the vast heart of the Savior I serve, we can trust He takes no pleasure in our destitution, but knows our needs better than we do.

One morning as I stood solemn in front of Madelynn's monitors, I wondered how I would make it through another evening in the eerie lights of a hospital room. Hoping for encouragement, I logged onto facebook to read and reread the kind promises of prayer so many friends left on my wall. I updated my status, asking for prayer – that Madelynn's oxygen levels would continue to rise. I checked a few other items on facebook, and then logged off.

Madelynn's numbers were up by the time I set down the laptop. My first reaction was, "I feel kinda' silly telling everyone on facebook she still needed prayer, when she turns out to be doing well!" And then it hit me. I logged back on … Brad Strait, "I am [praying] right now", Kara Dameron, "You are in our prayers", Dana Capranica Gurlue, "Praying she goes home today" … the list goes on. Do you have any of those friends who promise to pray for you, just to be polite – but never do? I don't.

I am not sure how it is that the God of the universe (who designed the intricacies of the very little lungs we were praying for) works in such a way that the prayers of such a feeble and fallen people matter, but He does. Oh, how He does. And they matter beyond our intentions. If the Son of God was able to multiply two loaves of bread and a few fish to feed tens of thousands of people, how we must rejoice as we think of His power to multiply the small gift of our prayers!

Friends, your prayers did not simply aid in the healing of my precious daughter, but they shook me, they stirred me. Those prayers brought tears to Keith's face, and gave us perseverance to continue our own prayers. Those prayers renewed my desire to tell those that I come into contact with that they need not be afraid; they are sons and daughters of the one true King. Those prayers sent me crying on my knees, pleading with the Messiah to not allow me to forget that there are mothers all around in the world, and in my neighborhood, who cannot take their little girls to the hospital. Father, make it a daily burden, a constant thorn in my side – that I would reach out, pray for, and assist in the healing of those without.

I am reminded of a quote from Mother Theresa, "It is poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish". The quote is in reference to abortion, but as I ponder the millions of children in desperate need of healing – I question whether or not my daily decision to purchase "things", instead of giving all I have away, is not a decision that a child must die so that I may live as I wish.

Great Healer, may you bestow your generous mercy on those who are ill, those who are starving, those who have nothing. But Lord, may you not forget to heal others of us from our spiritual blindness, our desires to serve ourselves, our desires to collect luxuries as others gasp for necessities. And may we praise You, because we are healed daily, saved daily, touched by grace daily. To You alone be the Glory.