What to do with a Miracle. (Day Two)

Even though I was raised ‘in the church’, I had never before seen or experienced anything like what happened with my Danny, (now 10 years ago; if you haven’t already, please read “God is in the Miracle Business”).  But there are a few key things that must be noted: 

The doctors had been helpless in diagnosing Danny’s condition …      

   UNTIL God’s people started praying.

Danny was no closer to getting well, in fact, he was worse …

   UNTIL God’s people started crying out to God on Danny’s behalf.

Our family went from the normal school, work, sports cycle every day…

   UNTIL God got our attention through circumstances that seemed

   totally surreal—I mean, how do you go from walking alongside your

   two-year-old son riding a skateboard one day, to holding him in the

   pediatric ICU, praying for his life, the next day? (Besides Danny, I had a        

   kindergartner and two high schoolers)

My faith had been prepared in advance to weather the storm, so I never doubted God’s plan.

God heard every prayer that was uttered on Danny’s behalf, and he chose to answer them in his timing.  God is always right on time…have you ever noticed?  It would be a couple weeks before we knew that on that fateful Wednesday (when he was diagnosed with a bleeding disorder in addition to the kidney failure), our home church in Northern California had people come together to pray at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.   We were unaware of it, but God knew.  The next day when Danny had surgery, though there were clotting agents on hand to stem the tide of bleeding, the surgeon said, ‘He only lost a half teaspoon of blood…amazing.’  And after we had him back in his room, the charge nurse came in and said, ‘It is the oddest thing—but the bleeding order does not ‘present’’…  The hematologists had no explanation for what had happened with his day-before diagnosis … but we did.  God removed it.

Within two months, Danny was totally well.   WHY did God allow our child to be healed and not the millions of others around the world?  I don’t know.  The only thing I know for sure is what we experienced, and though I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world either.  (That’s the thing about ‘your experience’—it is yours, and no one can take it away from you!)  Aware of God’s miraculous touch on our little Danny, I remember saying to God, ‘I don’t know why you chose us, but thank you … I will steward this gift well … I will tell people that you heal, that you are not a God who is far off, but very involved in the details of our lives … I will tell them of the awesome power in prayer.’

And so I did – tell them.  Paul talks about the spiritual gift of faith in his letters to the Corinthian church; with this experience, I had the gift of faith to pray for the healing of others, since I had seen ‘the miraculous’ first hand.  And so I would get the call to pray for people, knowing it was only my part to pray, and that God is the all-sufficient, all-powerful and all-knowing One.  And so he heard and he came and answered … again and again.  At Bible study, in hospital rooms, the simple prayer for God to ‘come and do what only he could do’ was answered.  There was Lisa with Stage Four cancer – today you would never know her body had battled cancer—let alone life-threatening cancer.  There was 10-month-old Merrick, whose parents were told he would never walk, but he did, and a lot more!  Am I meaning to say that God miraculously healed every person for whom I prayed?  Oh, not at all, but his presence was felt in every situation, and in many, he did heal.

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

   Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?  Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?  If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! Matthew 7.7-11

Enter Mercy.  When God compassionately responds to the cries of his children, we experience mercy, which most assuredly is a byproduct of his grace.  Mercy in total is a challenge for most of us mortal men; yet I know that it is God’s will for his children to deal in compassion, to offer forgiveness—even when it is costly, and to move away from judgment, even when circumstances would surely warrant it.  There have been times when I have been asked to ‘go and pray’, and it was costly to me—personally—whether pulling me from my family, jeopardizing my own weak immune system going into disease-ridden ICUs, etc., but mercy constrains me to go.  Why?  Because I am so keenly aware that I am nothing without God’s mercy.  And because I have felt the hand of God’s mercy, it is mine to go and extend that same hand.

Stay tuned … tomorrow, more on Mercy – a spiritual treasure,

            and a little girl of miracles …. who needs another.

Christine

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