Waiting for healing: Day 45

Waiting is a strange thing. It is strange to wait for something that seems impossible. It is especially strange to wait for that impossible thing when you have been given assurance that the thing you wait for will be. Does God ever do that with you? I could tell you of several occasions when the Lord has given a word of promise to me surrounding something in particular that I have prayed for or about...and then I have had to wait for His answer (once for a year and a half). That’s where I sit with my health at the moment. The Spirit expressed to me both His authority over my body, as well as a promise of health and wholeness. In the process of prayer and while sitting in the presence of God, He has revealed layers of brokenness related to my physical health that extend past the body and into the mind and soul...and I believe the Lord reveals these things only when He wishes to deal with them. He is very thorough, this God of mine. I look forward with joy to the entirety of healing He will bring.

And so I wait; every morning I get up and wonder if this is the day He will heal me, and every night I go to bed wondering if when I awake I will know health. 

And so I also wonder; how long? How long must I wait this time? Am I wasting this time of waiting? I am determined NOT to waste it, not matter how long. Thus far He has been faithful to sustain the peace He has given surrounding the mess of my body; He has allowed me to give over my attempts to control; He has quenched my creeping doubts, my tendency to despair, and my panic with His promises; He has held me up and given me the courage to talk to others about my journey and my hope for healing (this is HUGE for me...I feel like I lay my faith on the line with every conversation). 

Last night in my time of prayer, this line came to mind from the song “Faithful” by Brooke Fraser: “And as I wait for you, maybe I am made more faithful.” 

So there is my prayer for this strange time of waiting: May it make me more faithful to the One on whom my faith rests. Because every time I do not allow doubt to take over, every time I do not dwell in my despair and worry, every time I speak His promises in the face of my desire to gain control...I am saying, “I believe YOU, Faithful God.” And I think that clinging to the faithfulness of God produces faithfulness in the one who clings.

Praying for healing: Day 35

I have been very encouraged by this quote (from a great sermon) as I fight doubt surrounding my health by purposefully choosing to hope that healing will come: “We usually count victory by confronting and changing circumstances that we’re facing, but God counts victory when you pray again after loss.” Bill Johnson, An Unusual Victory

victorious waiting

©1-4-15 hannah mclean

i wait

i wish i could say with patience, 

but the peace i hold does not come easy 

nor is it due to lack of travail

as i cling to hope

with prayerful hands 

i wait 

my body sliding backwards

my spirit reaching heavenward

and yet 

i am victorious 

in this broken state

because where silence 

echoes back the wail of my heart 

i come again

and bow to pray 

again and again

i lay my head upon the Father's lap 

till His garments soak up my tears 

and His promises steady my shaking shoulders 

with Him i find

that in spite of every step i lose 

i know hope

i wait

i wait on Him to act

for without Him

i have nothing