“If you had faith God would heal your child.”
Some of the most heartbreaking and gut wrenching words I’ve had to wrestle with over the last years.
There was the person who prayed over my child at the super market, but their words brought condemnation.
There was the time someone contacted me to tell me step by step what I should do to heal my child— as if God’s healing was a result to be reached from a daily exercise program.
There was the question— “why hasn’t God healed your child?” Which felt blatantly like an accusatory finger pointing back in my direction.
If my faith was enough, God would heal my child.
I sat with that for a while. I let it stir in my soul.
I took a good look at myself, at my heart, at my faith— that was admittedly weak at times.
And then I looked at God. I opened the Bible. I read about healing and faith and Jesus.
And as I read and searched and wrestled and prayed—
I realized something.
God doesn’t heal everybody.
What about Paul and his thorn?
Paul who was faithful, whose life was changed, the very man who wrote a good portion of the Bible as we know it.
And God asks that we have faith but when God wills to work— He works— sometimes on behalf of the faithful and sometimes for those with little faith.
And healing is not a reward for a shiny heart and a perfect faith. Healing is a gift— one that WILL come for my child— either here or in eternity.
And I believe He can. He can heal her. With just one word. Honestly, some days that feels like a knife to my heart. I don’t understand why He doesn’t.
But if you or I are prideful enough to believe we get to boss around the God of the universe— as if He’s just a jeany waiting to grant our every wish, as if He’s available only to make life easy for us— then that’s not faith at all.
So I sit with that.
A God who can but doesn’t.
I recall Daniel in the lions den.
I recall the men in the fiery furnace.
I recall the suffering of Christ himself.
And a God who could have just taken it all away with a word— but for reasons bigger than I’ll ever comprehend— He did not.
So, I wait for the healing to come.
I release the burden from my shoulders. It’s too much for me to carry.
I remind God that I know He can and I know He will.
And I rest in the One who has made a way for my child already.
Rest in Him.
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