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Dance In The Rain Melissa

If you do not know Melissa Prater or are not aware of what is going on in her life right now follow this link and read the most recent post, so the rest of my post makes sense.
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I admit that I am just plain mad right now. That is my primary, dominant feeling.

Kelly is crying in the other room, but I am mad. I am aware that these are the different stages of grieving, or working through pain and disappointment, but it doesn't change how I feel. I sit here typing angrily. Kelly lies in the bed with Halle cuddling through the tears.

I am helpless. We are helpless. Only God can do miracles and I am not very clear on how much our prayers influence him in those decisions. Am I allowed to say that? I feel like I have to right now to be authentic and real, because I definitely feel it.

I am reading "Jayber Crow" by Wendell Berry right now. The section I am read last night/this morning is so applicable right now:

"But the worst day of all was when it hit me that Jesus' own most fervent prayer was refused: "Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done." I must have read that verse or heard it a hundred times before without seeing or hearing. Maybe I didn't want to see it. But then one day I saw it. It just knocked me in the head. This, I thought, is what is meant by "they will be done" in the Lord's Prayer, which I had prayed time and again without thinking about it. It means that your will and God's will may not be the same. It means there's a good possibility that you won't get what you pray for. It means that in spite of your prayers you are going to suffer. It means you may be crucified.

After Jesus' terrible prayer at Gethsemane, an angel came to Him gave Him strength, but did not remove the cup...

But now I was unsure what it would be proper to pray for, or how to pray for it. After you have said "thy will be done," what more can be said? And where do you find the strength to pray "thy will be done" after you see what it means?

And what did these questions do to my understanding of all the prayers I had ever heard and prayed? And what did they do to the possibility that I could stand before a congregation...and pray for favorable weather, a good harvest, the recovery of the sick and the strayed, victory in war? DOES PRAYER CHANGE GOD'S MIND? If God's mind can be changed by the wants an wishes of us mere humans, as if deferring to our better judgment, what is the point of praying to Him at all? And what are we to think when two good people pray for opposite things- as when two devout mothers of soldiers on opposite sides prayer for the safety of their sons or for victory?...

"Father, remove this cup from me, " I prayed. And there I stopped. For how would I know what God's will was, even provided I could have the strength to submit to it?...

By then I wasn't just asking questions; I was being changed by them. I was being changed by my prayers, which dwindled down nearer and nearer to silence, which weren't confrontations with God but with difficulty...of knowing what or how to pray..."
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Any yet... I prayed with Halle tonight... like every night...for Melissa and Doug and the kids and many other things. I prayed for healing. I prayer for a miracle. I did not pray "but thine will be done", because THAT IS NOT WHAT I WANT MOST RIGHT NOW! If God's will is not to heal this AMAZING WOMAN then I can't honestly say I want it. Who honestly could? Honestly?

Lord,
I want your will, but I don't understand how that can possibly not include Melissa's healing. I can, on the other hand, clearly see how it could/should include her healing. You and I have been here before, at this place. This is where faith and common sense collide, and the collison breaks me and confounds me. My faith persists, but my heart and head and body hurts. I beg that your will and my will are aligned on Melissa's healing. I beg you Lord!

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1 comments:

Eddie Smith said...

Thanks for the transparency and instruction! It's a wonderful ministry.

Have a blessed Christmas!

Eddie Smith
www.EddieAndAlice.com
www.PrayerBookstore.com
www.TeachMeToPray.com