Thursday, August 11, 2016

I Will Remember

Y'all, the Israelite's stood in front of the Red Sea and they were able to stare and gasp as the waters rose up and parted.  Can we just all stop for a minute.  Don't just skim past that because you've heard it a million times.  Close your eyes and picture this: THE ISRAELITE'S STOOD IN FRONT OF THE RED SEA AND THEY WATCHED IT PART!.....................................................I have to think that most of them were freaking out inside when they were taking those first steps on the dry ground where the sea had literally just been.  They walked beside walls of water on their left and their right.  I mean when I close my eyes and picture this, when I put myself there, I just get all kinds of feelings.  Where there was no WAY God MADE a way.

After experiencing this water park on steroids the Israelite's must have been just crazy in awe of Gods mighty power and Gods profound love for them.  And yet as you go on to read the rest of Exodus you see how quickly they forgot what God had done for them.  He had delivered them from a life of oppression and He had promised them an abundant land rich with resources.  Ummm and this just in...he parted a SEA FOR THEM, like a large body of water just opened up....I mean I just can't even!  Water parting is a miracle people.  That doesn't just happen.  They witnessed a supernatural moment that should have just ingrained in them a deep everlasting trust in the Lord but they passed by those H2O walls and forgot what the Lord had done.  

The word remember is a word that I cling to these days.  I never want to forget what God has done in our life.  For not a second do I want to pull an Israelite!  I don't want to be walking in the "desert" and complaining about how I'm going to get a drink of water when five minutes ago I witnessed God perform a miracle.  I want to remember what God has done in our life.  I want to cling to the fact that no matter where we find ourselves, I can trust Him because He is faithful.  He always makes a way when there seems like there is no way at all.  The way He makes may not be the way that we would have chosen and it may not at all be a way that we like but we have to trust that His ways are always better than our own.  Because quite frankly they are!

The thing that I really want to drench myself in lately is that God is never changing.  The God of the Old Testament is the same exact God of the New Testament and He is also the same exact God today.  Miracles aren't just a thing of the bible.  Miracles exist today but we try to explain them away or we keep them to ourselves because people might think we're crazy!

When we were in the hospital fighting for Dustin's heart to not fail something super crazy happened.  After a horrifically terrifying first day Jake went home to be with the girls, Dustin was sound asleep, and I more or less passed out on the "bed" knowing that I had several hours before the nurses would be back in for vitals.  After just drifting off to sleep the lights flashed on and the door slammed open.  In that moment my heart sank because I knew this was it.  Dustin's heart was failing and I was going to have to watch my baby boy die.  As I jumped out of bed something wasn't right.  A man was in the room alone and he was oddly walking towards Dustin's bed speaking broken Spanish.  In my half awake state I couldn't put together what was going on but I knew something wasn't right so I rushed to Dustin's side and forced the man out of the room.  Come to find out he was the father of a child on the floor and the stress of being a parent with a child in the hospital had caused him to drink a tad too much.  (The nurses had NEVER heard of something like this happening!)

After my adrenaline slowed down I just sat there on the bed in the dark feeling completely alone and attacked by the unseen world.  I was exhausted in a way that I'd never experienced and I desperately needed sleep but I was terrified because I didn't feel like we were safe even in the "safety" of our hospital room.  Then all of the sudden in the quiet of the night I heard voices....a jumble of voices all at once talking.  I couldn't make out what the voices were saying but I knew without a shadow of a doubt that God was giving me a soundbite of what He was hearing in heaven.  As quickly as the voices came they disappeared.  I sat there in awe and disbelief.  People everywhere were lifting Dustin and our family up and I heard it.  We were covered in prayer by hundreds of people.  I was NOT alone at all.   In that moment I knew that Satan wouldn't be stealing my sleep by using fear.  Full of peace I went to bed and I might add that I slept great that night!  This I will remember!

Months down the road I was all alone in the living room with Dustin.  I was giving him his first of 6 medicines for the night and he choked.  For what seemed like an eternity he tried to gasp for a breath and he just couldn't get one.  I watched his body turn a scary shade of blue and begin to go limp.  When I was about ready to begin giving rescue breaths I saw air finally make its way into his lungs.  As I stood there with my partially limp baby who was slowly regaining his color I broke down.  Then the most insane thing happened.  Our living room filled up with God's presence.  Words cannot begin to describe it but the room felt brighter, warmer, and full; like love was just bursting at the seams.  Think the Grinch Stole Christmas heart growing scene times a billion.  I knew that God was there in a very real way like I don't usually feel Him and I knew in that moment that God breathed that breath into Dustin's lungs.

That night as I laid in bed I felt God pushing me to go into Dustin's room and lay my hands on him and pray out loud.  That's not something that I do so I was kinda like, "thats crazy" and I rolled over, but the feeling wouldn't go away.  So I went into his dark room, laid my hands on his heart and just prayed out loud for him.  I prayed for him to be healed in Jesus name.  I prayed that God would use his testimony.  I prayed that our response to his health would be pleasing and glorifying.  I prayed that Satan would have no place to plant fear in our hearts.  I prayed for miracles!  Then I walked downstairs knowing that this was a a night I needed to remember.


Not long after we found ourselves back at Cooks hospital so that Dustin could get his second set of ear tubes and an ABR(Auditory Brain Response) test since he would already be sedated.  When the audiologist walked out to the waiting room she knelt down and she said, "Something interesting happened with his results."  Jake and I looked at each other and took a deep breath not at all knowing what to expect.  We were hoping his hearing would improve a little now that the fluid was drained out BUT the test showed that his hearing had improved a lot.  Actually so much that in one ear his hearing loss is so moderate that he quite frankly might not even really need a hearing aide.  The audiologist didn't say the word miracle but she was dumbfounded.  This doesn't happen.  We asked and were told multiple times over the last few months that his hearing would never get better than the initial ABR test and yet it did.  While the doctors can't think of an explanation I can........God did this.  I laid hands on Dustin and prayed for his hearing to be healed and God said yes!  The best part is that when Kylie Jo found out the results she bounced up and down and celebrated......GOD HEALED HALF HIS HEAD....GOD HEALED HALF HIS HEAD!  That morning she had prayed expectantly for God to heal his hearing and He did!  This I will Remember

Today I find myself having a bad day.  A really bad day actually.  The kind of day where I had to syringe 12 of the 20 oz that Dustin ate.  The kind of day where I am so tired of waiting that I want to march into Cooks and demand that they do the tests on Dustin's digestive organs now.  The kind of day where physical therapy seemed never ending and unchanging in it's results.  The kind of day where tests at the audiologists office took hours which meant getting stuck in rush hour traffic in a crazy hot car while Dustin screamed the entire way home.  The kind of day where I found out that another person I love who is sick with cancer needs a miracle that can only come from God.  The kind of day where I look at my prayer request paper and my heart physically aches because it seems like everyone is hurting through really big things right now.  The kind of day where I feel so completely alone......and then I stop and remember what God has done.  I remember to turn around and look back at the seas that He has parted.

I don't know what you are walking through today.  Life has taught me lately that most of us are walking through hard things.  I just want you to know that God knows.  He sees you.  He wants you to come to him.  He wants you to ask for miracles.  He wants you to trust that He has the power to answer.  Even when you want to believe so badly but you have unbelief....he is okay with that.  I have prayed a million times Lord I believe but help my unbelief.  Nothing is impossible.  Where there is no way, God makes a way!  Trust that His ways are better!










No comments:

Post a Comment