Sooooo many people are praying for Wes. I appreciate it and I can feel the love. The knowledge of those prayers sustain me. They really do.
But what if....WHAT IF...God's answer to those prayers for healing is "No. Not this time." What if the ordinary course of nature is allowed to happen?
What if Wes dies? Will God be glorified in that way, too? Will the Kingdom of God advance by the ordinary early death of one good man?
I truly hope, dear readers, that you are not pinning your hope on healing. Because God is bigger than that. God is bigger than our temporal hope.
Lazarus died twice, you know.
Someone told me, a few months ago, that "God is gonna heal him. He has to. So many people are praying for that."
But he doesn't have to.
The most basic, fundamental Christian prayer, the Lord's Prayer is taught to us by Christ God himself: Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."
How can I, as a servant of God, presume to tell Him what to do? How can I know what will be best for my salvation, or for Wes' salvation, or our children's salvation?
Of course we ask for healing. But we ask with open hands, lifting up our cares to the Lord and trusting in His holy will.
That's the kind of trust and faith I want to have. That's the kind of trust and faith I want my kids to have. That's the kind of trust and faith that glorifies God.
Thy will be done.
Ever since the beginning of this cancer journey with Wes I have been at that place of agony with Christ: "Let this cup pass from me, but not my will, but Thine be done."
So if nature takes its course, and God does not miraculously intervene, I hope that God is thereby glorified. If God reaches down and mysteriously makes Wes' cancer go away, I hope that God is thereby glorified. If I have to become a young widow and finish raising my kids alone, if I have to step into a very very frightening future of potential poverty and loneliness, I hope that God is thereby glorified. Or if Wes is given a few more years....whatever happens....I hope that God is thereby glorified.
We aren't out to manipulate God. We aren't trying to tell God what to do.
But please, don't stop praying for us.
May God be glorified, in ALL THINGS. (even in death...because...."Christ is Risen from the dead, trampling down death by death and upon those in the tomb bestowing life.")
But what if....WHAT IF...God's answer to those prayers for healing is "No. Not this time." What if the ordinary course of nature is allowed to happen?
What if Wes dies? Will God be glorified in that way, too? Will the Kingdom of God advance by the ordinary early death of one good man?
I truly hope, dear readers, that you are not pinning your hope on healing. Because God is bigger than that. God is bigger than our temporal hope.
Lazarus died twice, you know.
Someone told me, a few months ago, that "God is gonna heal him. He has to. So many people are praying for that."
But he doesn't have to.
The most basic, fundamental Christian prayer, the Lord's Prayer is taught to us by Christ God himself: Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."
How can I, as a servant of God, presume to tell Him what to do? How can I know what will be best for my salvation, or for Wes' salvation, or our children's salvation?
Of course we ask for healing. But we ask with open hands, lifting up our cares to the Lord and trusting in His holy will.
That's the kind of trust and faith I want to have. That's the kind of trust and faith I want my kids to have. That's the kind of trust and faith that glorifies God.
Thy will be done.
Ever since the beginning of this cancer journey with Wes I have been at that place of agony with Christ: "Let this cup pass from me, but not my will, but Thine be done."
So if nature takes its course, and God does not miraculously intervene, I hope that God is thereby glorified. If God reaches down and mysteriously makes Wes' cancer go away, I hope that God is thereby glorified. If I have to become a young widow and finish raising my kids alone, if I have to step into a very very frightening future of potential poverty and loneliness, I hope that God is thereby glorified. Or if Wes is given a few more years....whatever happens....I hope that God is thereby glorified.
We aren't out to manipulate God. We aren't trying to tell God what to do.
But please, don't stop praying for us.
May God be glorified, in ALL THINGS. (even in death...because...."Christ is Risen from the dead, trampling down death by death and upon those in the tomb bestowing life.")
Comments
Some people will say, "You must not have had enough faith," or "You must not have prayed enough." Don't let that kind of thing rattle you as you walk down this path. God is NOT a computer. He doesn't answer all prayers in the affirmative.
But He will sustain you no matter what - win, lose, draw. He is there with you. Back in our Episcopal days, one very dear woman said to me, "You can't 'feel' God when you are crucified on the back of His Cross." So, on the times you cannot "feel" Him holding you up, think about that. At the time of my very traumatic and messy divorce from my first husband, I was a melted puddle most of the time. It caught me unaware. Yet even that moral dilemma and psychic trauma led to something so much better than I ever dreamed - marriage to my best friend, conversion to Orthodoxy, and all that followed that. What happened wasn't "good." How I "let" God use it was the good. That is what - hopefully - Glorifies Him. Every.Day.Of.Our.Lives.Together. However long (or short) that will be. 37 years (almost) so far.
So, I cry out with you - Glory to God for All Things!