Long one... so please bear with me... and I hope you find encouragement in it....
Thank You Lord for this day.... for the blessings and mercies of yesterday, today and tomorrow.... blessed be Your Holy Name.... For you are the sovereign power over all time and space... You are the one that delivers us.
Today is the day, a year ago, that the world appeared to come crashing down upon my wife and I, but if not for prayer... it would have been the end rather than the begining.
What I have learned during this last year, above many things, is the power of prayer. It is our life line, our connection, to God.... it invokes His mercy, His grace and moves Him to act....
Hundreds, if not thousands, prayed for us, never stopped raising requests for healing to our Lord.... It gave us comfort and peace.... it encouraged us to continue on in hope when we heard one devastating report after another from the physicians.
Never discount its’ power.... never hold back... when you have no idea what to say to someone going through a crisis... tell them you are praying for them... that you love them... that they are not far from your thoughts.... it means so much... even if they cannot express it at the time.... one of the most comforting thoughts expressed to me during that time was at the end of a long day.... where someone understood our exhaustion.... and told us...”rest, we will carry her in prayer tonight”.
There are so many I wish I could thank personally... from the prayer warriors to strangers sitting with us, feeding us.... listening to us... and in silence letting us know that we were not alone nor forsaken...Thank you from the bottom of hearts... your names will forever be etched in our hearts....
Two prayer moments stand out that I remember as if they occurred yesterday... may you find comfort in them as I did when they occurred...From my personal journal during that time:
August 14th:
When landing I called a friend, Chris…. I spoke and prayed with him outside of Fort Lauderdale airport… he encouraged me not to give up hope….. that our God is a God of love, mercy and grace….. I communicated that some of the Pastors he led us to had already visited the hospital and prayed over Amanda… it was incredibly comforting….I was trembling and needed to hear it….
In the Hospital that first day....
More visits and prayers followed…. people showed such kindness. One person in particular came to visit, a mountain of a man, his name is Bill. He prayed over her…. put his hands on her head and body and asked Father God to heal her…. stating that it was not the doctors or the nurses that would heal her… but HIM… that He had promised that if we ask in Jesus’s name for the will of God to be such, and with unquestioning faith, …it would be given…
I was told later that his son communicated…. that on the way to the hospital…. it was of one of the few times he had ever seen tears in his father’s eyes.
That moment and time will be forever with me… the strength of that prayer was felt… I knew God was in the room with us…. and was carrying our weight and cries on his shoulders. Nothing can adequately describe the agony….. and the feeling of grace... I felt at that moment.