First of all, I want to tell the whole church “thank
you”. Some prepared meals, which were
dearly appreciated, but all have shared love, support, and prayers in one way
or another.
We are so very grateful, and that is also what God laid on
my heart to share.
Nick and I both grew up with parents that were diagnosed
with terminal illnesses. Though those stories turned out differently for the
parents concerned, it was much the same in how it affected us- further proof
that God really is preparing you for your mate long before you ever even meet.
Because of our
parents’ illnesses, there were often situations where our parents had to depend
on someone else to help take care of the children. That meant that we saw
Christian charity in action, on our behalves, pretty early on. However, as we
learned a few weeks ago in our Sunday school curriculum, our heart intentions
are even more important than our actual actions. While I don’t doubt that
caring for us was an added burden to our church family, or that some of the
church members did indeed have their hearts set on Christ, we were children,
with little listening ears, and when church family and blood family complained
about having to take us into their homes, it hurt us.
As our Pastor has
often said, it is often not what hurt
a person that leads them away from the church, but who hurt them. This was the case for us; we saw Christians caring
for one another, but their attitudes made it clear to us that we were a burden.
At different times in our lives, this has either made us leery of relationships
with other Christians, or absolutely unwilling to accept help.
I did not want help-not when my husband was deployed and I
had my first baby all by myself, or when I was living overseas with no family, no
friends, and no husband, or when I was trying
to finish school, with 1,2,3…almost 4 little kids and a husband frequently gone.
I would rather struggle along by myself than ask for help- and have to bear
feeling like a burden again, like I had as a child.
So two weeks ago, when we were waiting on the Lord to show
us the right path for how our new little boy should arrive, things took a
significantly different turn than we had envisioned. God promised to show us
the way, and he did, and he answered every prayer we lifted up along the way.
There were even prayers going up that we didn’t even know about, from people who
didn’t even know what was going on at the time. Prayer is powerful, and our God
really answers.
Yet, there were so many unexpected turns; the kinds of turns
that at first might not appear to be part of answered prayers at all. In the
end though, the things that count most were accounted for- namely our little
boy’s life. True to his form, God also showed us how those frightening moments
were part of his perfect plan.
I still wasn’t ready
to accept help, and wasn’t willing to ask for it. So the Lord allowed complications
that would put us in a position where we needed help more than we ever had after
one of our babies has arrived. For the first several days, this spinal fluid
leak made it hard for me to even look down at Mack to take care of him.
I still didn’t want help- I told the nurse I had a little
bit of a head ache. Then Mack was cleared to come home, and Pastor asked if we
wanted any help, and true to form, we refused it.
But Pastor in all of his wisdom, and Holy Spirit leading, wouldn’t
let us; And all of you stepped up and helped us….and a healing took place.
Not just of our physical bodies (Mack and me) but our
spirits (Nick and me).
We felt loved- And no
one made us feel like a burden.
Pastor and Mrs. Layson reminded us, that it is a blessing to
give, but if we refuse to receive, we rob others of the chance to bless us and in
doing so be blessed.
Then the Lord opened my eyes even wider.
We didn’t want to share with everyone about Mack’s arm or
how very close we came to not bringing a baby home at all. We trusted that God
had a plan for it, and since we felt faithful, we didn’t want to burden anyone
else with it. Again, this is our modus operandi.
Unless we are in a place where our faith is faltering, we
almost never share our prayer requests. We keep them to ourselves, to one
another. Recall, we don’t like being a burden, or sounding like we are not
grateful for all the good we do have.
But this time, regardless of our own peace that surpasses
understanding (Philippians 4:7), God used this other situation to impress on us
that not sharing our prayer requests is like robbing others of the joy of
giving.
If we don’t share our petitions and
hurts, even when we are confident that God is caring for them, how can others
share in the joy of watching prayers answered?
I justified it thinking that if our prayers weren’t answered
in the way that we would expect, it might hurt someone else’s faith, even if we could appreciate how God might be
using the situation.
But I realized that even then, we should all be sharing with
one another- the joys of answered prayers and the lessons of prayers answered
in God’s time and God’s own way.
So thank you. Not just for how you have taken care of my
family in the last couple of weeks, or how you have welcomed our sweet little
boy along with us, but for allowing yourselves to be used by the Holy Spirit to
heal something in us that we have struggled with for so long. We can already
see God working in our tiny boy’s life- healing him and using what happened to
him to pull us closer to our church family and closer to him.
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