A Little Sign of Hope

I have found that there are three stages in every great work of God: first, it is impossible, then it is difficult, then it is done. ~Hudson Taylor

If you read my last post, you know that I was feeling the weight of things to come and the weight of things in the present. Every now and then I get caught up in seeing things on the worldly side and just cannot "see" the spiritual realm. I forget sometimes that I can choose which of these two realities to be my reality. Even when I see the purpose behind something, it is sometimes (most times) difficult to watch another struggle through it.

I have a friend, who is quite ill. She is my daughter's piano teacher, but she was my friend before the Princess was born, the first real friend I have had since moving here and our friendship has lasted well over a decade. When I needed a word from the Lord, it often has come through her, and I have been able to provide the same for her at times also. This illness causes her terrible fatigue and lately she has had a fever for unknown reasons. She was an only child with both parents passed on and she has been living alone since her divorce which happened some years before I met her. I am very concerned about her. It has been one of the things weighing me down lately. I wonder why she is not receiving healing.

I am hoping the book I am currently reading will shed some light for me about the gift of healing. Actually, I have been quite taken with the first chapters. I already have read about experiences similar to my own and am eager to read a later chapter covering unbelieving believers. Like one of the two authors, I have often found that believing unbelievers receive healing more than the unbelieving believers. Now my friend has been healed in the past and believes in healing, yet is not healing, so the gift of healing still mystifies me. Maybe it is supposed to be that way?

I now have another for which I need to pray. My younger half-brother called me tonight. It is the first time we have talked since our mother died two years ago. He said that his ex-wife just gave him the Christmas card I sent with my contact information. I knew he was divorced, information passed to me from our sister who called me around Christmas after receiving her card. I am still sad about his marriage falling apart. His two daughters are so young, just four and two years old.

We talked about various things. He is a computer whiz kid (kid to me, that is), but does that after hours and works in an automotive shop for a steady income. He is having difficulty with back pain. He took a fall off the roof of his father's mobile home when he was about nine years old and they apparently did not take an image of his back. When I saw him just before he married, I knew he was going to have problems; his back had a very pronounced abnormal curvature, much, much worse than my own. I figured then that in just a few years he would begin to experience serious pain and he is now. Unlike me, he has gone the conventional route and is taking pain medications that he now fears he will not be able to live without, which was one of the reasons I purposely avoided pain killers with my own back problems. He also needs healing.

Later in our conversation he told me something that made me wonder if it was the real reason for his call, a little sign from my Lord to lift the doom and gloom I was feeling and remind me that all things have their purpose. My brother proceeded to tell me about a dream that felt too real and was terribly frightening, but also made him feel the presence of the Holy Spirit within him. Now he had accepted the Lord as a teenager, but later told me he never really was that into it. He sure seemed "into it" when he first told me. I saw the glow about him, but he trivialized the whole thing just two years later. He found himself doing the same with that dream just three weeks later, but this time he prayed that if it was from the Lord that He make it known...and he had the vision again in that instant.

Right afterward he read for about three hours every day until he read the entire Bible from beginning to end. He is not in a church because of his work schedule. I will be praying for his healing and that his employment changes so that he is able to attend church.

I am just very thankful for the reminder that prayers are heard by the God who cares. There are so many who need healing and to know the Lord.

~ My Lord, please bring healing to these two people whom I love this day. You are truly the God of impossible great works. ~