Yes, Virginia, There Really is a Jesus

Monday last week and I'm standing in the aisle of Kroger, between the bacon and the lunchables, when my buggy barely misses grazing hers.  I look up apologetically and catch her eyes.  We both smile with joy and embrace.

An acquaintance going back decades.  Never moving in close enough circles to be friends, now seeing each other once a year or so.

I look at her and hesitate with my question.  Not sure how far to go, what to say, how to ask.

How's Howard?  I begin.

She starts to speak and I interrupt, nervousness overtaking me as I assure her I have been praying, thinking of them each time I pass their home, only streets over from my own. And I have been, but not enough and doubts are hovering shame.


I gave no phone call or casserole or cake.  I feel guilt.

She smiles and asks, You don't know?

I remember it was no longer than a year ago we heard the news.  Cancer.  Stage four.  Not much hope.

Howard would start aggressive chemo.  Pray for the family.

Week after week in Sunday School the news was never good.

You don't know? she asks.

Then began the words that caused chills which kept me wrapping my arms tightly around myself. I notice my feet are rocking back and forth between the floor and the lower rung of the buggy. I feel tears. My phone rings, I reject call.  Please, Rie, I beg myself - don't doubt. Don't be your normal.


She begins . . .

On the way to a chemo treatment in Florida his intestines burst.  She receives the call about surgery and rushes down.  Still hours from there her phone rings, Hurry, he may not make surgery.

After surgery she hears more, His whole body is a tumor.  It's everywhere.  We're sorry.

Then the man she loves and the father of her children tells her he can't go on.  The pain is too much to bear.

She finds a place quiet and for the first time asks our Father to take him home.  I'm ready, she says to God.  I can do it.  If it is your will for my life I will submit.  Please, take away his suffering.  Take him home.

For once she didn't ask for healing.  She didn't beg.  She didn't bargain.  She didn't yell angry.  She didn't tell anyone what she had done.

More painful words.  Be prepared for a long healing of surgery.  Three weeks here, two more in home hospital . . . if he lives that long.

She restless sleeps and at dawn the next morning finds him sitting in bed. 

Within days there are more words.  Cancer is gone.  There's no sign of it.  There's no sign he ever had cancer . . .

We don't understand.

You can take him home.

We stand together, shoppers moving all around us and she's looking at me and laughing, giddy like a young girl in love, and says,  He's a case study now.

I stare at her and don't know what to say.  I remember opening my mouth and closing it quiet.  Opening it again and saying, Oh, Lynn.

She looks at me, smiles, and with all understanding tells me she loves to run into people that don't know.  She loves to tell the story.

Miracle.  Say it.  It rolls off your tongue like smooth honey.  Banishing doubts that we live in a different world than the one Jesus dirty sandaled walked on. 

Quinching thoughts that our God no longer controls and proves.

Destroying the pain that thiefs our sleep and sits hard on our heart that there is nothing we can do for the one we cry for.

Yes, Virginia, there really is a Jesus. 

I search and strain for I do not doubt miracles.  Just miracles for me.  My worthiness of a miracle for my wretched, I'm too ashamed to tell you my secrets, self.

I don't have to deserve, but isn't that a hard part to understand?

So I strive to focus and take God seriously. 

Would you join me in healing prayers for the one or ones that ache your heart? Not for the comfort and peace that He so willingly, lovingly bestows - but for the touch of hand that restores and makes all things new.

For that miracle that needs only the faith of a mustard seed.

At the bottom of the mountain, they were met by a crowd of waiting people.  As they approached, a man came out of the crowd and fell to his knees begging, "Master, have mercy on my son.  He goes out of his mind and suffers terribly . . . I brought him to your disciples, but they could do nothing for him."

Jesus said, "What a generation!  No sense of God!  No focus to your lives!  How many times do I have to go over these things?  How much longer do I have to put up with this?  Bring the boy here."  He ordered the affflicting demon out - and it was out, gone.  From that moment on the boy was well.

When the disciples had Jesus off to themselves, they asked, "Why couldn't we throw it out?"

"Because you're not yet taking God seriously," said Jesus.  "The simple truth is that if you had the faith of a little mustard seed, a mere kernal of faith, you would tell this mountain, 'Move!' and it would move.  There is nothing you wouldn't be able to tackle."  Matthew 14-20

Let us pray for you.  Would you share here who needs a miracle of healing?