"Do you have any hope?"

She asked me, "Do you have any hope that she might survive and be okay?"  It was a sweet friend who went through her own significant loss not long ago. The question stings just a little because I know many people wonder the same thing and it is so closely related to a question which I had softly been rolling around inside of me for weeks.

"Why can't I bring myself to pray for a miracle?" and, "What kind of Mom doesn't pray for a miracle?"

One day I went to my room to get on my knees and deliberately pray for just that.   I asked my mom for a few minutes and stole away to a quiet place and just fell in complete surrender before God as I went to ask for a miracle.

But as soon as my knees touched the floor and I entered into His presence, I knew I could not pray for God to miraculously heal Lydia and deliver me a healthy baby.  Not because I don't have hope that He could heal Lydia.  Because I know he could, but the truth is, if God healed this child my faith in Him would not be any stronger the day she was delivered to me healthy than it is today.  I cannot pray for a miracle because I do have hope.

I believe that if Lydia dies, she goes straight to the arms of the King, the Jesus who loves her more completely than these arms ever could—to a King who grasps the confines of eternity in a way my mind can not and will not even try to fathom—to a King who designed and weaves a tapestry which would be ignorant for me to try to alter.  That is my hope and expectation.  I have hope in knowing that God is sovereign and His plans are good. I have hope that God is going to do some of His finest work through the suffering I endure in this trial.  I have a great deal of hope that somehow through my suffering God will glorify Himself and that those of you who I love most and who don't know the extravagant love and Grace of Jesus will somehow come to see His character in this journey.  That is my deepest, most excruciatingly painful hope. 

So when I go before God on my knees, all I can pray is, "Lord, my baby is sick.  Whatever you're doing, do it perfectly,   Oh please, God, I just want your perfect plans because I know they're so much more beautiful than anything for which I would ever ask!"  (However, when I pray I leave hanging prepositions, so it would actually be, "...much more beautiful than anything I would ever ask for."--I feel the need to be truly transparent.  My prayers aren't even close to pretty nor perfectly articulated nor remotely grammatically correct.)

And so today as we listened to a sermon on grace and the fact that what grace truly comes down to is that God the Father of Jesus had to allow His son to die so that the world could know Him, it started to become clear in an eternal way the reason I can't pray for Lydia to be born to this world healed.  I pray if my daughter has to die, that it would not be in vain. That somehow people would come to know Him through this suffering.  The world came to know God through Christ's suffering.  And I pray that if God performs a miracle and heals Lydia completely it is because one of you, my dear loved ones, needed to see God do something impossible to know He is God.  Because I don't need Him to do this for me. Don't get me wrong, I would rejoice and be overcome with unspeakable gratitude if He did.  I know that He can, even now, but I know that He is sovereign and whichever outcome reveals Him most clearly to those of you who do not know Him is the outcome for which I long.  Because having Christ walk with me along this journey leaves me so completely secure, and my strongest and strangest fear is for those of you who face these trials on this earth and do not know His amazing perfection.

My faith is not strong because it's something I have cultivated.   I do cultivate my faith through different means now that it has been given to me.  But ultimately faith itself is a gift that only God can give.  I asked and received.  Do not look at my walk and compare it to what yours would look like.  I am amazed by my own faith because it's a gift from God.  We should always be amazed by the things God gives.  I now realize that this is not prideful in anyway.  My faith is truly an amazing thing--especially to me.  My faith is God given and there for awe-some. I look at it in wonder and know it did not come from me.  I want it for all of you!  And if you want to know God, all you have to do is ask for it, too.  He literally does the rest.  There is no perfect outline or perfect prayer you have to pray.   If you want a faith like this, ask Him for it.  But know there is only one God.  There is no other God who produces a love like this. 

All of that said, believing and following Christ does not promise us an easy road this side of heaven.  I am living this Truth.  It's hard sometimes.  We are to "pick up our crosses and follow Him,"--words I have heard hundreds of times but never truly understood because I have never been called to my cross until now.  I would lay down my life if  it meant more knowledge of this amazing love for those I love.  I know now beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would. And I will lay down my daughter to Him for the same cause.  Because life with Him on this earth, though painful, is temporary and is far more glorious than the pain and suffering of the world without Him.  Glorious enough that I would die for you to have it.  And life with Him in Heaven is what I look forward to and is ultimately the hope that I have.   My hope truly is in eternity.  My eyes are fixed on it.  I have hope.  Oh, I do indeed have hope.

But with all of that said, I won't lie, there is a small part of me that hopes that some of you need to see Him heal Lydia to gain your faith.  I say this with a sincere, yet amused smile. 

If you know me at all, you know I don't boldly share my faith.  I boldly live it out, I won't deny it, but I don't proselytize.  I will not initiate the Chic-fil-a debates, or the pro-life/pro-choice debates, and if I had my way I'd never enter into them because the life of Christ is so far beyond political debates and government policy.  It's about knowing peace and joy in suffering and living with one foot in eternity even in this temporary and painful world.  I won't put any effort into trying to convince you to "be born again."  Because I know only God can reveal himself to us in His perfect way and timing.   I pray that my life and my journey and Lydia's life and journey would be a window for you to see God.  But this is my heart.  I want with all of my heart for you to know Christ like I do.  And I would give anything for it.  Even if my heart wrenches inside of me with pain, I know He is good.   And I want you to know His goodness, too.