Sunday, March 20, 2011

A Good God

Most of you reading this blog already know how fearful I have been about the possibility of losing our child.  I mentioned in a prior blog that I was really terrified about what that kind of loss and devastation would do to me mentally.  I was concerned that I would get so lost in the sorrow that I would lose myself, and not be any good to the rest of our children or my husband.  As I thought about this fear God told me to just lift it all up to him.
Sounds peachy doesn't it.  Just lift it up to God, oh OK.  That's all.
There are so many times in life when prayer just doesn't seem tangible enough as a help, or a tool to get us through what we are walking.  Sometimes when it's someone else that needs prayer, we almost scoff and say, "Of course I'll pray, but what else can I do."  It's as if we don't believe that our prayers are powerful, and that they hold as much weight as they really do.  I am so guilty of this on so many levels.  It's funny how we have to walk around the same stupid mountain soooo many times to really hold onto something.
Let me ask you this, How many times have you seen and experienced God answer prayers in an amazing, miraculous way?  Just sit on that question for a while.  Make I mental list.  I'll wait.
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Okay, now remembering those times, doesn't it almost seem silly that here I am thinking thoughts like, "Oh OK, God, I'll just lift that right on up to ya, and you let me know that I'm not going to go insane over the eventual loss of my sweet baby."
This I believe is just another part of our human nature, and I think that God is quite aware of it all and here is why.  

Below is my prayer from Friday night March 11th.

Okay Lord you told me to lift my fears up to you so here they are: I am afraid of facing depression all over again, I am afraid I might even lose my sanity.  It sounds funny Lord, but I mean it with every part of me.  I am afraid that mentally I will shut down, and barely be on auto pilot trying to do things for my family.  I am fearful of being in a place where every beat of my heart is numb and feels empty.  I am afraid that in order not to die from the agony over my loss that I will shut down completely and be a shell of myself with no hope of ever feeling again.  I am afraid of what that will do to the people around me, especially my children and husband.  I have visions, and nightmares about being in a mental hospital, and sometimes I am wearing a straight jacket.  Heavily medicated I am still sobbing in these visions and my family is forced to walk this journey without me.  These are my fears, and they haunt me night and day.  So here they are Lord, take them...if you really can.  If you really want me to survive this and somehow in the midst of my pain bring glory to you and tell people how good you are then I need you to show up bigger than you ever have before in my life.  My other children and my husband need me, and I can't be any good to them if you don't show up REALLY big and I MEAN IT!  DO YOU HEAR ME? REALLY BIG, OKAY?!?!?!?

This was my prayer to God.  The cry of my human heart with sad anticipation of what is to come.

This was the answer from MY God:
Saturday morning March 12

Saturday morning came like every other morning.  Aaron was watching the kids and I got a phone call from a good friend.  We were supposed to meet that day but she was sick so we decided to pray over the phone.  We were praying over her house, my house, our families, lots of things.  We weren't praying over David.  We had a specific list and David wasn't on it that particular morning.  We were doing spiritual warfare for other things that needed some direct attention.
After praying for what must have been 15-30 minutes on everything we felt God had prompted us, my friend was hesitant to be done.  She told me that we weren't quite done and that God was asking her to do something.  Just then her husband walked into the room where she had been praying and I heard her say, "Honey come over here, God wants you to be a part of this."
As she said that to her husband God spoke to me and told me that what she was going to pray was for me and that it was about Baby David.
"Okay," I thought, I can handle that.  I must admit I was expecting a prayer of grandeur with words that tried but just couldn't grasp the overwhelming desire for our baby to be born healthy.  So I waited for her to begin, and what happened next was one of the most intimate moments I have ever had with God, trumping even the day of my salvation.
My friend opened her mouth to pray, and it was a language I had never heard.  She was praying in tongues.  I began to weep, because even though I didn't know what was being said my heart understood that it was the Holy Spirit praying to God through her on behalf of my precious son.
My friend had no idea what she was praying, just that she was being obedient to her God.  When she finished I told her that the prayer was for me and not over anything that we had previously been in prayer over.  She immediately asked her husband if God had revealed to him a translation.  He asked for a moment to be in prayer over it and walked away.  When he walked away I told my friend that it was about Baby David.  Just then her husband walked back in the room and gave me a message from my God:

Peace and Comfort are here, tell Heather everything is going to be okay.

The God of the Universe had a message for ME.  It was a direct response to the fears I had lifted up to him, out of obedience just a day earlier.  He didn't even make me wait for a response.  He loves me that much!  He also knows that the hurt of what is to come and the fear of it all was so overwhelming for me that he wanted me to have relief.  What an amazing God!

Now, I want to make it very clear that I do realize that everything being okay doesn't necessarily mean that I will get the miracle of a clean bill of health for my son.  I also realize that it doesn't even mean that my son will be born alive.  What I do know is this, I am going to be okay.  Mentally and emotionally I am going to survive one of the most difficult things a parent can face.  The very thing that the God that loves me experienced himself, the death of a beautiful beloved son.
Yet because he loved me enough he let his son experience death.    He knows full well how my heart will break and he has assured me that if I cling to him, I will survive mentally and emotionally.  He will help me to bring him glory through David's story, no matter how it ends.

OUR PRAYERS HAVE WEIGHT!  EVERY CRY OF OUR HEART, EVERY FEAR, EVERY REQUEST FOR GOD TO SHOW US HOW BIG HE IS, THEY ALL HAVE WEIGHT IF WE JUST LIFT THEM UP TO THE ONE WHO LOVES US!


Let me ask you a question, what have you not committed to prayer fully because you forgot how much weight those prayers will have?
I'd love to partner with you in lifting it up. heatheramhaynes@gmail.com




1 comment:

  1. so precious...thanks for sharing...praying continually for you Heather and for david and aaron and the girls. be strong and courageous as you walk this walk...love and hugs!

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