I remember feeling so fired up when I wrote that- so full of faith and so compelled to speak and share that faith with you all... one day God WILL heal him, I said!
And you guys, ultimately I still believe that, but I've also caught myself starting to doubt and wane in faith.
Because...
What if this "healing" that God has for him just isn't what I've imagined all this time? Maybe it'll be more gradual and not immediate??
What if I've actually been completely wrong and God wants to use allergies in his story and not ever heal him?
Is it even right to keep begging God for something that I really want when it's been months already and we're not really seeing any profound happenings because of it.
Ugh. I can hear all the lies from the enemy in all that as I type it out.
We scheduled an allergist appointment for Amos last week. Like, a for real, all-this-guy-does-is-allergies, allergy specialist appointment. I hesitated to schedule an appointment because honestly, I had been so hopeful for divine healing for him, I didn't want to prematurely rely on anyone or anything other than God.
And then months past and I started to question if my timeline and the Lord's were lining up. And at the same time I grew so full of questions about practical implications of what his allergies mean for our lives and how to best approach them in relation to this world we live in.
And so we found ourselves there for an hour and a half in a tiny, stuffy, white walled room- all four of us- to talk this through. (Well, Harv and Amos were happily distracted by iPad games and snacks, anyway, while my husband and I did our best to speak over the noise of Netflix with the doc.)
And after that appointment I actually felt all of this weight from the "extreme case" of allergies that I had perceived Amos had lifted. Because, in perspective, they weren't all that extreme after all. I mean, they're still bad. And he will still barf after eating the tiniest bit of something his body decides to reject. But the test result numbers are still relatively low enough for the allergist to say that he thinks there's a good chance Amos will outgrow a couple of them.
HOLD UP.
Outgrow them? Are you sure? That's not what I was told before...
But this is the guy who's job is allergies saying this, so I should think I can believe him, right?
And then that introduces a new problem... if he can outgrow them, then where's the need for my miracle from God??? Should I even keep asking for it? I've honestly had a hard time keeping faith and have even felt a little dumb asking for it because now the miracle doesn't have to be so big, so why should I make such a fuss about it?
Gosh, guys, I'm just being real. It's been really hard and confusing.
How do you fully trust God's plan for your life while also going to Him as your dad (who controls the flipping universe!) and asking him to give you the good things you desire? And then where are you left when you've spent months praying and believing for those good things only to not see them coming to fruition?
And so, here's my resolve.
First off, I have to keep reminding myself that my motivation for going to God for healing for Amos began as what I believe was a call from the Lord. It was a big prayer that I felt strongly the Lord put on my heart and asked me to keep pursuing Him with. I don't believe my full motivation is just that I want healing for him as his mama (although that's true), but it's also something that the Lord birthed in me and showed me a promise for.
How quickly I forget that.
To you, in your spot, I'd say, have you asked God about it? Have you asked Him if this desire for healing, restoration, peace, money, property, or whatever that's welling in you is from Him? It may very well be. And if it is, you have EVERY REASON to keep pursuing it with full faith in Him.
That's another piece of this. I don't trust myself, on the reals. But if I believe with all I've got that the Lord showed me a glimmer of His glory for the future in this, then girl, heck yeah I can trust that.
And you know, it still might not end up looking like I originally thought it would, but should that at all stop me from praying with all I've got, in faith, to see that glory come about? No way! I. Trust. Him.
I recently went through Mark Batterson's Circle Maker and Draw the Circle books. They're so great if you're looking for something to push your prayer life and confidence in God's power out of it's comfort zone.
One thing Mark hits on is the idea that when we start out with big prayers but then see obstacles come up or our faith starts to waver (hello, me.), if we resolve to let that big dream of faith go too early, we might miss out on the miracle. You've got to keep praying through, he says. If you stop asking, you let go of the promise God gave you.
And so I'll keep on asking as long as it takes. God did give Abraham a promise for kids and it took 25 years, after all. But look at all that the Lord did after that 25 years of ole' Abe and Sar essentially waiting.
The other piece I doubt is my own understanding of how God works all this out. Just being real, I totally do not understand it.
I want it to be true that if I just have the right amount of faith, declare it with authority in the right way and then fast for the right amount of days (all things I've done genuinely) that it'll come to pass like I foresee it. And sometimes that is the case. Either way I believe all of that truly blesses the Lord, but there's really no formula for guarantees. And sometimes I hate that that's true... I love a good formula. ha.
But you know what is guaranteed? GOD IS GOOD. Maybe we don't get to declare the specific thing and automatically have a guarantee that God will do it, but in the words of my sweet younger sis, we can declare that "God is good and He has good things coming." Period.
Man. I super needed to write this post for my own feeble self. (Ha, feeble. Great word.)
I was journaling through this today and realized I was tempted to just resign on pursuing a "big thing" from God for Amos and wanted to, for a minute, lift up my hands and say "whatever you decide, God." But then it immediately occurred to me- call it the Holy Spirit if you want- that though that may feel like trusting in His plan, for me it was really just giving up. And that takes a lot less faith than pursuing Him, continuing to put my requests before Him and believing for something miraculous from Him.
And so I guess we're back to that first post I wrote about all this... I do, still, truly believe the Lord has full and complete healing for Amos's allergies!
My faith may be a little less strong today than it was a couple weeks ago, but I don't think that's a make or break thing for my God. In fact, I think it's only human and my God has tons of grace for that. But in the midst of it I'll keep on approaching Him like I know He's in charge of every last star in the sky, corner of the world and bit of sickness on this earth. 'Cause He is. And I'll ask Him to help me with my unbelief, and be confident in the fact that my story is less about seeing God answer my prayers and more about walking the journey of growing in understanding of Him and who He's shaping me to be along the way.
**shooting star emoji**
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