It’s really easy to take three years for granted until you’re sitting in a car speeding down the interstate trying to get your baby to the ER. That’s when you know the hand of God must be guiding you. Until wheels are spinning down the road at 1am it’s really easy to take things for granted. Faith never did come without a crisis did it? So, in the midst I offer thanks to God. I will spare you the details and share maybe when I am a little less raw? I won’t bemoan the details now, but I will share and boast of the miracle, the wonder, the joy, the building of faith.

It is 4:25am and I hear my three year old easily gently sucking air in and out; I listen to them breathe often, because it’s a sweet gift to me, their lives, but tonight…in the calm after the storm, I sat and listened heart squeezing thanks, heart melting with repentance of sin I didn’t even know about…mostly human pride and weak faith.  But just three hours ago we were up moving quickly, without a lot of grace at all,  in emergency mode. Sleepless nights mommies, sleepless nights they come and they come (smile). And that’s really ok with me.

We needed prayer. I called a few friends, one of which actually picked up the phone. They were praying. Then, I called my mother-in-law…in the dead of night, she offered words of life, faith, words that strengthen souls. I heard her saying, Do you want me to pray right now while we are on the phone. YES, emphatically, please. She prayed fervently, full of faith through the hard night and we soared out of that trial on the wings of the prayers of the saints and perched upon the willing strong mighty of hands of God to move and answer accordingly. She ended Thank you for answering our prayer. The prayer of faith can make the sick person well. And it did.

We did not go into the hospital. While we were still on the way, it was over.

When you don’t know how to make it through the dark nights of the trials of your life. When everything is glossed over and you can’t see to drive straight or think straight. The staying factor is prayer. The steadying factor is our God. Prayer illuminates our way and guiding us toward the loving hands of our God. And still the children of Adam forget to pray always, about everything to God. So, let us repent then and be sober-minded for the purpose of prayer. It doesn’t take a crisis of faith to pray, but so many of us are weak in prayer until shaken up. But we are the honored ones that have a faith that cannot be shaken, a faith that compels us to throw ourselves, cast ourselves upon our God. As I often say Oh Father I am my anxiety. I cast myself on you.

I don’t know what dark night you might be speeding through, but I know the Way through. Always, it’s only, Jesus. He is the Way.

While we were still on the way, He healed her. Didn’t I just read that story in Matthew 8?  The centurion’s servant was sick, so sick, and He sent for Jesus, but while Jesus was still on the way, didn’t that master send the Master a message…

When he had entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, appealing to him, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.” And he said to him, “I will come and heal him.”But the centurion replied, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I too am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. And I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes, and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who followed him, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith.

The centurion’s faith led to an even more miraculous outcome. Jesus was already on the way, but great was the centurion’s faith and He asked Jesus for the healing now, because Jesus had authority to do it. And He did. Does the Father in some sweet way fold us into His Word? Can’t we see ourselves in the ones who came before us. In the ones who doubted and asked to see His hands, in the ones who cried Hosanna, in the ones who shouted Crucify him!  Can’t we see glimpses of our humanity and the gift of our glorious faith in people who believed as we can believe? And can’t the prayer of a righteous man make a sick person well. Ultimately well. Yes, the literal ailing sick, and the sick of soul of which we have all become. Did not my own mother-in-law offer this prayer, express this faith while we were still on the way, and Jesus answered us!

Didn’t my daughter exclaim on the way back, Jesus healed me. And isn’t that what He does…doesn’t He send His Word and heal us? Ultimately from everything forever, but even now…. Even now in a land that doesn’t comprehend the reach of the fall, how far humanity has plunged over the edge into darkness. Healing light comes…. Like she spouted all the way there Look at all the lights. Prayer makes light spring up everywhere perhaps?

Maybe there was more purpose in driving through the dark than I had thought. Maybe I wasn’t driving to get my daughter well, maybe the Lord is making me better…making weak faith stronger. That is real medicine that can heal the soul.