Answered Prayers For Healing
I prayed that God would heal my son’s food allergies and autism. I prayed that He would lead me to the right research, interventions, and answers to bring healing to my son’s body that would heal his allergies and autism.
I prayed that God would heal my chronic illness involving extreme fatigue, brain fog and insomnia. I prayed that God would give me enough energy to take care of my family and even minister to others too.
Written by Sarah McGuire
I prayed that God would heal my son’s food allergies and autism. I prayed that He would lead me to the right research, interventions, and answers to bring healing to my son’s body that would heal his allergies and autism.
I prayed that God would heal my chronic illness involving extreme fatigue, brain fog and insomnia. I prayed that God would give me enough energy to take care of my family and even minister to others too.
I prayed that I would know God more, who He really is and not just knowing about Him from church and Bible school. I prayed for spiritual healing, salvation yes, I resolved that long ago. But beyond salvation, my desires and motivations had (and still have) a long way to go in mirroring His.
He answered my prayers for healing my son and spiritual healing with a yes and He is in the process of answering my prayer for healing my chronic illness with a yes, but none of them were how I expected or how I would have chosen for Him to do it.
My son’s healing came through extreme lifestyle changes that revolutionized most aspects of our family’s life. It was not easy, took a lot of time, commitment money, research, and sacrifices.
My chronic illness, of 10 plus years, is at the beginning of the process (it’s been 3 weeks), but the differences are significant already. It is not easy, requires our family to relocate, and involves huge sacrifices on the part of all of each family member and extended family in order to make it happen.
My spiritual healing isn’t easy either. It was initiated with my Savior suffering and dying a horrible death and taking my sins on Him to pay the price I owed. I’m sinful. God is holy. Without the pain and sacrifice of Jesus, there would be no healing for me. Ongoing as I desire to be more like Him, His answer to my prayer for that is not simply to give me a more spiritually mature perspective and faith, but to grow it in me by the challenges I face in this life as I come to Him with the problems and struggles and depend on Him as we go through them.
There was a time (years) in my life where I felt like God had abandoned me, was silent and was not answering my prayers. In reality, He was answering, but I couldn’t see it because the answer was in such a different form than I expected. At least that was the case for healing my son and my spiritual healing. For healing my chronic illness, evidently it wasn’t the right time yet. That answer is involving stripping many other beloved things and people away from my family and I, and I don’t think it would have been good for my family for that to have come much sooner. He knows the perfect timing.
God doesn’t always answer prayers with a, “Yes”, nor does He always answer right away or even soon. When He does answer with a, “Yes”, it may involve other sacrifices, work, and painful things. But no matter His answer, He is always working for our good, even when it doesn’t look or feel like it.
Written by Sarah McGuire
To The Mom Who Is Broken
Sarah couldn’t sleep all night. I heard her come into the bedroom and could see the hint of sunlight coming in from behind our curtains, when I finally heard the gentle rhythm of her breath indicating she was asleep. She was no longer staying awake at night because she was with a child who needed her. She was awake because of her own health struggles. It was going to be another rough day. Written by Jonathan McGuire
Sarah couldn’t sleep all night. I heard her come into the bedroom and could see the hint of sunlight coming in from behind our curtains, when I finally heard the gentle rhythm of her breath indicating she was asleep. She was no longer staying awake at night because she was with a child who needed her. She was awake because of her own health struggles. It was going to be another rough day.
Later in the day, she would greet me in her perpetual state of exhaustion. Sadness and frustration in her eyes as she wished she could do more, be the wife and mom that she always dreamed of being, and make memories together as a family as we did activities together.
Her brokenness was not a lack of motivation or desire but a reality that stood like a locked door with the life she wanted on the other side.
A couple years ago, we were visiting with an older couple who had walked this journey of special needs before us. The wife shared that through the process of raising their son, she became broken. Her old self died and she was no longer the same woman that she used to be.
This resonated with Sarah and it may resonate with many of you. At first, I was so close to the pain that it grieved me. I didn’t want to accept the truth of the statement. I didn’t want to let go.
Time has passed and the sentiment still holds true in Sarah’s mind. However my perspective has changed as I see that while there was a death of her old self, the person she has become is so much more.
It may seem cliché, but to me, the change more resembles that of a caterpillar changing to a butterfly. When a caterpillar is in its chrysalis, it goes from eating everything in sight and growing, to being dormant for a period of days to weeks. At the end of this time it struggles to finally emerge from its cocoon, unfurl a beautiful set of wings and then launches into a life it could never have imagined as a butterfly.
I once heard the story of a child who watched a butterfly struggle as it was coming out of its chrysalis. The child felt so bad for the butterfly struggling that she tried to help by freeing it of its encasement.
The butterfly was never able to fly and it died. It needed the struggle to build the strength to fly.
Sarah may never have the strength to do what she did before, and while she is delicate, she has become much more beautiful than before she was broken.
Where are you at? Do you miss who you were and how strong you used to be? Do you, like Sarah, feel like a significant part of you has died and you are no longer the person you once were? Do you feel like you are failing others and at times like you just want to cry?
Be encouraged, in your weakness these struggles are strengthening you. You are beautiful and you are loved.
He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds.
Psalms 147:3
Written by Jonathan McGuire
