Prayer. A Risk Worth Taking.

 

So much happens in a year.

A new year is a chance to begin again, a fresh start in your story that’s already ongoing.  However the things that are most life altering are often the things we have the least control of.  Both good and bad.

In my little world, something monumental happened in the year of 2015.

In my ongoing story.

In my son’s ongoing story.

In my family’s ongoing story.

Something I will never forget.

The year 2015 will forever be etched in my memory, forever marked and looked back on for a lifetime.  But the story didn’t begin in 2015 and the story continues on.

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The story begins with a young mom and a baby boy.  The baby boy was her first.

This young mom dreamed of how she would love her baby and tell him about Jesus.  She didn’t have a map to go on because she did not grow up that way.

So she dreamed it up.

What could it look like for her child?  She wondered, dreamed and drummed up ideas.  She read the psalms and proverbs over her baby boy daily.  Her love prevailed over any awkwardness she felt.  Joy welled up in her heart, spilling over through her smile, through her words, as she read, spoke and sang about the love of Jesus.  She prayed for wisdom in the dailyness of mothering and prayed for her baby boy’s future.

Among her many prayers, she prayed a single prayer over and over.   It’s a prayer she still prays today.

That her son would know and love Jesus.   Dwelling in the house of the Lord all his days.  {Based on Psalm 27:4}

He grew.

And she grew.

He grew to be healthy vibrant 4 year-old, thriving in life, now a big brother with another baby sister on the way.  The young mother grew in her reliance on the Holy Spirit as she continued to dream up and live out how to raise a young family to know and love Jesus.  She never knew just how much she needed the presence of the Holy Spirit to lead and guide her until she embarked on the journey of motherhood.

One day out of the blue, the 4 year old boy had a seizure.

The mom and dad rushed him to the hospital where the doctors ran tests which only led to more doctors, more appointments and more tests.   Blood tests, CT-scan, multiple MRIs and an EEG.

All they could do was pray and wait.

The seizures continued.  A month later their 4 year old boy was officially diagnosed with Epilepsy.  The medicine the doctors put him on worked for more than a year’s time.

Then the seizures began to break-through the medication and the boy’s seizures were upwards of three a day.  After adjusting his medication with no success, the mom and dad found themselves completely helpless, at the end of themselves, on their knees daily in prayer and unable to do anything successful to keep the seizures from coming.

The Neurologist told them about a diet, the Ketogenic Diet, originating out of Johns Hopkins Hospital that had a high success rate in controlling seizures for epileptics.  The mom and dad were desperate to get their son back, so they decided to go all-in and attempt the diet.

Life changed as they knew it.

It took 4 months to fully-master the doctor-prescribed diet.  After 6 months on the Ketogenic diet the boy’s seizures were finally under control.

In the midst of seizures coming on a daily basis, the young mom and dad came to the acute realization of how little control they actually have in life.  Complete surrender to the Lord’s Will for their lives and for the life of their son was their ONLY option.  Epilepsy helped them realize this truth that, in actuality, was there all along.

Dreaming up and living out what it means to love Jesus as a family was tested and tried in this season.  There were dark days, there was no way around it.  But the light shone through, piercing the darkness, and beauty rose from the ashes.  Because that’s what Jesus does. That’s who He is.

They decided, as a family, to take God at His Word and ask Him for healing.

“If you ask anything in my name, I will do it.”  John 14:14

As a family, they gathered daily.  Nightly.  To pray.  To ask.  In Jesus’ name.  For healing.

It was risky.  They risked disappointment.  Living that out in front of their children.  What if healing didn’t come? They wanted God’s Will for their lives, didn’t they?  They stopped coming up with “outs” for God and simply committed to asking.  No ~ begging.  Believing God to be capable and able to heal.

They prayed nightly as a family for more than three years, marking the 5th year of living with Epilepsy.

Over the years, more children were born into their family, a total of four little ones  Once a child was old enough to utter words, he or she would take a turn to pray with the family.

The children’s prayers were elaborate with details of ways God could heal their brother from his “tongue quivers” {as they called his seizures}.  They would try to one up each other with prayers of how God could kill those tongue quivers, “like a giant squashing a bug” or  “like a bonfire burning them away.”  The prayers they conjured up became more and more elaborate.

All in the name of Jesus.

The family asked for healing daily even though days turned into months and months turned into years.   It was in the asking, in the seeking, in the praying, that their hearts changed.  They trusted God more with each day that passed.   And He opened their eyes to see what truly mattered.

Even though it was hard, they knew God was using Epilepsy for good in each one of their lives.  Thanking God and asking God don’t have to be mutually exclusive, in fact they found them to go hand in hand.

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Over the years God grew the boy spiritually.  Life with special needs, having to live different constantly, allowed the boy to see how it all pointed to a bigger story.

The health challenges he faced were a type of suffering that only Jesus could speak into and his heart grew a steadfastness in the Lord.  Scriptures taking root in his heart because of truth it spoke into what he was experiencing.  All of which led the boy to ask Jesus to be his savior and the Lord of his life for all his days to come.

Prayers answered.

Dreams realized.

Eyes opened.

The mom realized that her prayers that began as a young mom were being answered.

The mom had dreamed of how she would raise her baby boy to know and love Jesus with all his heart, mind, body and soul.  But she would never have dreamed up Epilepsy or chosen it.   And yet God used something difficult and devastating for good. God used it to answer her heart’s deepest desire for her son.

That her son would know and love Jesus.   Dwelling in the house of the Lord all his days.

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The boy approached his 9th birthday. The day came for another EEG.  All his EEG results had been abnormal over the past 5 years. The boy and his parents were up most of the night for the sleep-deprived EEG.

The family prayed.

The weary mom struggled to believe, she knew she risked disappointment.  But she prayed, “I believe, help my unbelief.”   She reached out and asked others to pray and to have faith.

She and her son took a walk early that morning to watch the sunrise.  They opened up God’s Word together and read these words,

“But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: with the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. Instead he is patient with you.”  2 Peter 3:8,9

God did not ever promise healing for her son but He promised to be patient.  God was never late and always on time.  She could trust Him.

The mom and dad took their son in for the EEG and came home.

All they could do was pray and wait.

Unexpectedly, the very next day, the mom received a phone call.  The nurse who was on the other end of the line, plainly stated,

“Your son’s EEG came back normal.”

Scrambling to find the words to speak, the mom managed to ask a follow-up question,

“Do you mean there was no seizure activity at all?”

The nurse followed up by saying,

“I spoke to the Neurologist and he said it was, in-fact, a perfect EEG.”

The mom hung up the phone and fell to her knees in adoration and gratitude.  She had believed it was possible and had seen God work in and through the most difficult seasons of it all and yet she was taken-back. THIS was actually happening.

Her son.

Healed.

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I’m reminded of a story out of a book I used to read to my son, Drew, back when he was a baby.  It’s the story out of the Bible about how Jesus healed ten people with leprosy.  Only rewritten and accompanied by beautiful pictures to help a child understand it.

It tells the story of how ten people had been outcasted from society for having leprosy, they were all desperate for Jesus to heal them. They called out to Jesus and He heard them above the crowd and healed all ten of them.  But only one of the ten came back to thank Jesus.

I can see how that could easily happen.  Desperately, we came to God in prayer.  And now that Drew is healed, we could easily look the other way and move on with our lives because the daily desperation to seek Him in prayer seems less urgent.

Yet it was prayer, not the Epilepsy, that grew us closer to Jesus and to one another.  In seeking Him we found more than what we asked for.

Sometimes our circumstances allow us to see the truth that, in actuality, has been there all along.  Complete surrender to the Lord’s Will for our lives IS our only {best} option.

I am so incredibly thankful.  There are no words.  I’m thankful for all of it.  The 5 year long journey.  It was never easy and we will never forget it.

2015 will be a “stone of remembrance” for me and my family.

I am in awe.

I.am.thankful.