Our son-in-love, who has been unconscious, but for a few moments, for nineteen days woke long enough to communicate with nods, smiles and grimaces for a short time yesterday. Our daughter’s heart was encouraged when he made a kissing gesture toward her.
His faithful friend, on the other side of the bed asked if he could have one too. “John” made a kissy face and rolled his eyes toward him.
We go on. We continue to pray for complete healing after flesh-eating disease and sepsis ravaged his body. Some of the medical staff have encouraged his day-and-night companions to continue to pray as they say it is only by the miracles they have seen so far that he is alive. At least one of them is not an atheist anymore.
We go on praying and trusting. We have a kiss -no, two kisses, to build a dream on.
I remember my affliction and my wandering, the bitterness and the gall. I well remember them, and my soul is downcast within me. Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope:
Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself, “The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him.”
The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.
This morning, on Resurrection Sunday, our son-in-love, who has been unconscious and in critical condition for over a week, opened his eyes.
He went back to sleep again and there is still much to pray for towards his recovery, but we thank you, Heavenly Father that you have overcome death by death and you have already won the victory.
When they received bad news from the fertility specialist my son-in-law (I’ll call John, as in John the Beloved) said to his young wife, “You know, the bigger the problem the bigger the miracle God can perform -and you know He can’t resist a good miracle.” They now have three beautiful little miracles to love and cherish.
This week we petition the Lord for another miracle -that these precious children would be raised by their healthy daddy.
When we arrived for our granddaughter’s fourth birthday he was already feeling very sick with what he thought was the flu and a pulled hamstring. Twenty four hours later surgeons were desperately trying to remove “brown gunk” from necrotizing fasciitis -flesh eating disease. They left an open incision from his knee to his waist and he has been on life support since Sunday morning after his blood pressure crashed.
But the most amazing things have happened as we trust God moment by moment.
When he heard the news shortly before the main morning service started, John’s pastor walked away from the pulpit of a large church to be at the side of his friend and a family in need. He has stayed with him in ICU, with several of John’s friends all night, every night since. The waiting room is filled with friends and people walk the halls nearly twenty-four hours a day praying for our beloved John. When the doctor’s reports grew more pessimistic they prayed harder.
Requests for prayer went out over social media and we are hearing from literally thousands of people around the world that their church, or home group, or school, or personal network is praying for this young family. We have never felt so loved.
God is doing something highly unusual here. As people come to pray they are themselves being touched by the love of God, repenting (choosing to change their thinking) and encountering a love and peace that does not make sense under the circumstance. People are being healed of deep wounds. Relationships are being restored, and more and more people are following the story on the media.
I’m mostly at home caring for the children with their other grandmother, while our daughter is at the hospital 20 hours a day. I went with her one night and was totally surprised by the atmosphere of peace in John’s room and the shouts of joy in the hall as the team prayed for the numbers on his monitors to change -and they did.
On Monday our little two-year old grandson was chattering to his distracted mommy who came home long enough to cuddle them herself, before returning to the hospital. Suddenly he changed the subject and said, “We don’t have to be afraid because Jesus is with us. Jesus is with us. Mommy, we don’t have to be afraid because Jesus is with us.”
Today she and I took the children for a walk, to take a breather. I had my camera with me (It’s a habit.) The little guy ran ahead and squatted down to trace “alphabets” that someone had written on the pavement. When I got closer I could see that it said “BE FEARLESS.”
The words on the other end of the bridge said, “LOVE IS LOUDER.”
I have no idea who wrote those words, but they felt like a gift from God.
The reports up until today have been quite negative. But God…
The love of God shining through people we have never met, through friends, through family who have travelled to be with John even though he is unconscious, have shouted down those dismal reports. Today we see improvement. Today the doctor said he was dying, but now he will live.
There is something more going on here than our limited human vision can see. John is a man who is willing to lay down his life for the Jesus he loves –and the people God loves. The love surrounding him is palpable. Some people are seeing angels in the room as they pray for him. He is the kind of man whose whole life is a message about God’s love and goodness. I know that if the Lord asked him to give his life to save the church, he would do it.
God is up to something. When his Holy Spirit surrounds his church His holiness reveals weaknesses where we have relied on the flesh and where it has become corrupt. He shows us how parts of the body of Christ have been without blood supply or functioning in the way God intended and other parts are not communicating with each other. Impurities that have failed to be removed by non-discerning “kidneys” can all be healed in the light of Jesus’ relentless love. He tells us we are in a war for unity and purity and love in the body of Christ and we have not been taking this fight nearly seriously enough. It takes a willingness to turn, to change, to seek the Lord. Without serious day and night prayer the church in this part of the world will succumb to hidden decay. We need God’s light and his love that shines and burns like a laser.
Love is louder!
Love is Louder
“John” is very much loved by many, many people. If you would like to pray with us for him we are asking right now for his blood pressure to rise on it’s own so he can get off the medications that restrict circulation to his feet, for restoration and preservation of his toes, for an increased platelet count, for his kidneys to start to function and for rapid healing of a massive open wound.
But more than that we want to give thanks to a God who is good, who tells us in writing on the sidewalk that we don’t have to be afraid and who tells us that love is louder than fear.
The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. (Isaiah 9:2)
You must understand that God has not sent his Son into the world to pass sentence upon it, but to save it—through him. Any man who believes in him is not judged at all. It is the one who will not believe who stands already condemned, because he will not believe in the character of God’s only Son. This is the judgment—that light has entered the world and men have preferred darkness to light because their deeds are evil. (John 3 Phillips version)
If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land. (2 Chronicles 7:14)
Mourning today for the 20 children killed in the U.S. and the thousands of children killed in Syria and the millions of children killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Sometimes I feel like the Lord throws pebbles at my window to catch my attention. When I respond he whispers, “Come! I have something to show you!”
Sometimes I answer, “But I have work to do –blank forms, sticky floors, unmailed parcels.”
“Come!” he says.
The attention grabber this time was freshly fallen snow on mountain ash berries outside my window. I grabbed my camera and went out to look. Then I followed the light and the mountain ash trees down the block to the creek. An hour later I was back at my desk with rosy cheeks and renewed joy in the goodness of Daddy God. He knows I love colour and the red berries covered with delicate pure white snow were like a sign of his goodness to me.
Shortcut Home
It is his goodness, his kindness, that makes me want to change.
Like a lot of people, I grew up with a God I was afraid of. I know I’m not the only one who picked up that message or the phrase the TV character, Maude, used, “God is gonna get you for that,” would not have connected with so many people.
In my culture the best thing that could happen to a person was to be “used” by God. That was an entrenched lie that took some considerable spiritual explosives to dislodge. Well, I had been “used” by humans and that was not something I looked forward to happening again, thank you very much. I understand now that the best thing that can happen is to grasp the solid bedrock granite concept that I am loved by God. Only then can I risk change.
One days, years ago, I called the children to supper. Two adorable little kids had recently joined our family as foster children. They did not come when I called. I found them hiding in the basement.
“Why didn’t you come when I called?” I asked.
The little girl said, “You put the bottle on the table.”
“What bottle?”
“That one!” she answered, pointing to a bottle of soy sauce I bought in Chinatown.
“You don’t like soy sauce?”
“When Grandpa puts a bottle like that on the table bad things happen!”
She covered her eyes and cried. That’s when I realized the bottle had the same size and shape as a whiskey bottle.
At first I made the mistake of trying to correct kids who experienced hurtful things the same way as we disciplined our own children. It didn’t work because they didn’t understand that they were loved. They didn’t know that if I sent them to their rooms that they wouldn’t be locked in there for days without food. They didn’t know what safe meant.
I picked up one of our little foster guys to take him out of a public place because he was disturbing others who wanted to enjoy the show. When I reached the aisle he grabbed the last seat and hollered, “Don’t beat me!!!” (I was probably reported.) I had never beaten him nor did I have any intention of ever beating him, but he didn’t know that.
God forgive me, but my prayers for years were don’t-beat-me prayers. It must have broken his heart.
Uphill
I “asked Jesus into my heart” during the Cuban missile crisis in the 60’s because I was afraid of going to hell if a nuclear bomb fell near our house, or of being “left behind” if all the people with an in with God got zapped off the planet. I didn’t need anyone to tell me how disappointing I was, how far short of the mark I fell. I certainly didn’t need a preacher telling me week after week that I needed to repent and change my ways. I needed someone to tell me how –or rather Who.
Leaning
Like our foster children I needed to learn that God was good, that he would provide my needs just because he was good. I did not understand that I didn’t need to earn nurturing care by making myself useful in the church, and thus indispensable. Yes, sometimes we had to set down firm boundaries for the kids at the start for the sake of safety (You may not stab your sister, nor yourself with a fork. You may not play on the road. We respect gravity here, and like gravity the natural consequence of defiance is consistent.) Eventually the children learned to trust that we had their interest at heart. Usually. The analogy breaks down when you are talking about sleep-deprived, nerve-jangled, insecure parents who also need to change, but most of the time we spent nights rocking them and days feeding and clothing and nursing them back to health –and playing.
So often people hear the message of Jesus Christ as “Change –or God will get you for that!” There are those who worry that if we speak of the good news, if his goodness is poured out in healing and encounters with a loving Daddy God who says it’s ok to leave work behind and go play in the snow, that we are offering a “greasy grace” that lets folks get away with unacceptable behaviour. “You’re just asking them if they want to come meet the One who just met their need. Where’s the repentance? Where’s the obedience?” they say.
Well, a lifetime of people telling me how disappointed God was with my behaviour led to my responding to correction with the same attitude I saw in a child who said, “I can’t do anything right! You think I’m just a pile of poo! I hate you! You’re not my mother and you can’t tell me what to do!” Like her, I went off and hid myself in depression and wallowed in my pooey-ness. It was the unexpected kindness of God that demonstrated he was not the same god I grew up with. He held out his hand to me.
Cool Waters
Change happens when we see ourselves as God sees us –loveable and worthy of his care. When we trust that fact that he is, indeed, loving and has our interest at heart we can see his discipline as disciple-making, as empowering us to become who we are meant to be. His judgment is a daily assessment of what is progressing well and what needs to be worked on next. It is not meant to be vengeful punishment and condemnation.
Charis: Subject to Change 