Answered Prayers

Although I have never been a member of a church who really participated in Lent, I've thought a lot about it over the last couple of years and wanted to do something. I kept thinking about what to give up this year, but nothing seemed right. We'd given up cable, so TV was already severely limited. I also knew I was about to start 7, so there would be lots of areas of indulgence examined during those months.

Last year someone mentioned that for Lent, you don't just have to give up something, but you could pick up something. So, I decided I would get up early every morning and spend time with Jesus by reading my Bible, praying, and doing my James Bible Study (by the way, it's awesome!). In attempting to do these things at night, I would usually "forget" or fall asleep if I tried, so I was not very good at having a relationship with Jesus.

As a result, He's taught me many things. He helps me to see Him in everything, and He's being able to teach me throughout the day. This is definitely a "habit" I will be continuing. (Side note: I started out getting up at 5:15, which changed to 5:30 after a couple of weeks, and is now closer to 5:45. I've got to get back to at least 5:30!)

Within the first two weeks of Lent, God answered some prayers in amazing ways. This encouraged me to continue getting up early to spend time with Him, especially giving Him my "first fruits" by doing it in the morning and not at night.

First of all, our friends, Steve and Julie Boyd, are adopting a precious little girl from China, Ruthie Grace. They received her as a referral before they even had a log-in date to start looking at the children. Selfishly, I was excited that we could put her picture on the adoption auction blog because that hadn't even seemed like a possibility when we first decided to have it as a fundraiser. But, then Julie realized they might not have pre-approval for 3 months, which meant they couldn't post her picture publicly. Julie was so upset, she was ready to share her little girl with all her friends! I prayed (along with many others) for them to get their approval way earlier than 3 months, but not at all thinking it would be in time for the auction, which started that weekend. Well, as God would have it, they got their pre-approval THE NEXT DAY!! Julie was so excited that she could show the world her little girl in China! Much less importantly, we also got to put her picture in the adoption auction so everyone could see who they were helping to bring home with their donations.

Secondly, our friends, Jason and Jennifer Slye, had a little girl named Lucy, in October 2011. Lucy has an incredible story, but I want to specifically talk about the answered prayers for her during Lent.

Lucy has a condition where her cervical spine is curved, instead of straight. The first MRI showed she had a curvature of about 55 degrees. At the time, Lucy's bones were also not ossifying properly, making a potential surgery very difficult. I knew they had appointments with two specialists in Delaware scheduled for March 1st and began praying for some specific healing for Lucy. One thing I prayed for (without even knowing what I was praying) was that at her next appointment, her spine would have straightened out some, that the next MRI would show curvature less than 55 degrees. I spent all of March 1st praying for Lucy, as she and her parents were meeting with the doctors. I was so anxious to hear from Jennifer. As soon as she posted on her Caring Bridge site, I read her update. Among many other answered prayers was that her c-spine was at 50 degrees! Praise God! That was the biggest prayer request Jennifer had before they left for the appointments. She wanted as much time as possible before surgery might be required. They got even better news than that while they were in Delaware. These doctors completely changed the way Lucy was being cared for and prevented her from having MRI's every month until doctors determined surgery was needed! These were HUGE answered prayers on behalf of people with more faith than me! Options like that hadn't even crossed my mind. I thought I was praying for something big in praying for her spine to straighten out. Oh, me of little faith!

Like I mentioned earlier, Lucy has an incredible story! Please read about it. Start here and here, then move to her Caring Bridge site.

Last, but certainly not least, our friends Michael and Misty Decker have a little boy, Shook. At his 9 month appointment, the peditrician noticed one of his boy parts hadn't come down. They did an ultrasound to see what the problem might be and the tech mentioned that his canals hadn't closed. (BTW, I'm way out of my league with what I'm talking about here.) Misty did some internet research (which is really not recommended) and saw a lot of worst case scenario issues. She waited and waited for the doctor to call her back. The doc said everything looked normal. Thanks to the tech mentioning the canal issue, Misty asked about that and was told that was normal too. But, not according to Misty's research. She told me about her convo with the doctor and how she wasn't reassured but didn't know what to do. I prayed for wisdom for Misty to handle the situation and for the doctor to understand a parent's worries. Of course, Misty was praying too, probably for many other things than I was. A few hours later, the doctor called back and said she went ahead and sent the scans to a pediatric urologist. The next day, the doctor called back and told Misty she was right about the canals and they definitely need to be closed by 12 months old. She also told Misty that it normally takes 6 months to get into a pedatric urologist, but they had been able to get an appointment for the NEXT WEEK! God was all over this situation! Thank you, Jesus! (BTW, here's the update post from Misty.)

I mention all of these things, not to point out what I prayed for, but that God encouraged me through these situations. We receive JOY when things happen that we've prayed about, especially when many other people are praying for them too, because then we all get to share the JOY together! As our pastor says, God gets the GLORY and we get the JOY!