My friend’s daughter, 15, was stricken with a lung infection and put on strong antibiotics, plus tethered to a breathing machine at Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta. As the weeks passed, her lungs weren’t improving, and one day I left the hospital in tears, certain I’d never see this precious girl again.
So many people were praying for her healing, but somehow I had decided the situation was impossible. I knew the child had been born with a large portion of her brain missing, and doctors had given her a year to live.
Here she was 15 years later, a beloved little girl, who was a testament to the power of prayer. Despite this miraculous fact, I was mentally limiting God’s powers, as if saying: “I know this is impossible, but I’m praying anyway.”
I was delighted, when her mom told me the girl would be moved to a smaller breathing machine. I was overjoyed, when the child went home, and was soon back at Mass with her mother.
Writing about a common problem in prayer, Father Daniel Considine, S.J., noted, “We put little heart into our prayers because we have little real hope they will be granted.”
He adds, “We forget that circumstances exist only by God’s permission, and can be changed by him in a moment if he wills.”
Another quote I love emphasizes the importance of the heart in perceiving a deeper reality: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye,” wrote Antoine de Saint-Exupery.
Recently, a friend told me tearfully she and her husband are getting a divorce. She said they’d tried counseling, but this didn’t help. It sounds like they’ve gone their separate ways forever, I thought, and promptly fell into the error of wondering whether God could heal this marriage.
Then I remembered Christ’s words, “With God all things are possible.” I also recalled how impressed he was with people who truly had faith. He told one woman he hadn’t seen faith like hers in all of Israel, and to another he said, “Take heart, daughter, your faith has healed you.”
Some people get discouraged when they pray, since God doesn’t always respond the way we expect. People pray for healing, for a new job, for marriage — but they may never get their wishes. Still, Jesus gave us the perfect prayer: “Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.”
God wills what is ultimately good for us, which means our salvation — and this may entail suffering and disappointments along the way. Christians follow the example set by Jesus, who accepted the intense suffering of crucifixion, trusting he would triumph in the end. As for the trials of this world, we know the truth of the saying, “This too shall pass.”
When it comes to answering prayers, no difficulties are too great for God to overcome. After all, it was “impossible” for God to rain manna down from heaven and part the Red Sea for the Jewish people. It was also impossible for Christ to feed the crowd with a few loaves and fishes.
Reason may declare something isn’t possible, but the heart sees the truth. In times of trouble, our role is hoping and praying, and letting God handle the rest.
Lorraine’s email address is lorrainevmurray@yahoo.com.
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