Monday, February 24, 2014

Does God Answer When Prayer Doesn't Look So Religious?

I don't think I talked to God more than I did when Allie was in a coma. My prayers weren't just quiet and they weren't religious.

I talked to God out loud - I'm sure I looked schizophrenic - while walking down the street or jogging through the park. I pleaded with Him demonstratively with sweeping hand motions. Sometimes I jumped up and down and yelled "PLEEEEEEEAZE!!"

I yelled at Him. I cussed.

I questioned why people thought He was wise.

I told Him how He should be running things. If I were running things, there sure wouldn't be a little baby lying in a bed with tubes in her mouth and nose and electric nodes taped to her head. I wouldn't be running things this way I told Him.

When I prayed, I warned people not to stand to close because there may be some inbound lightning. My prayers were not reverent.

I'm thankful that reverent, faith-filled and respectful people were praying, though. A lot of heavenly business was done on our behalf because you guys prayed.

The Charming and Beautiful Susan and I sipped coffee on our patio and spent time reflecting this past weekend. Some of the initial predictions about how life was going to be for Allie were dismal. One doctor, the first neurologist I ever met, was always extremely negative. When Allie was in a coma, he told me not to expect her to ever emerge from the coma. When she did come out of the coma, he told me to never expect that she would be much more than a vegetable. As Allie showed more and more promise, he expressed, reluctantly it seemed, surprise, but he told us to expect to have serious behavioral issues. He made sure we knew that life was going to be extremely difficult for us. There was a cadre of social workers and lawyers at the time working against us as we tried to take custody of Allie. They wanted to take her from us and put her into a group home for severely handicapped kids. They didn't think we could handle it.

So I prayed some more using the prayer style outlined above. And as others prayed, Allie continued to improve, and people with authority became our advocates. Prayers were being answered on so many levels.

Allie is now able to enjoy going to school and interacting with other students and teachers. She continues to exceed all expectations. Her behavior is continual joy-filled expressions of affection and contagiously positive personality. I wish that doctor could see how blessed our lives are now.

God has given us such an abundant life. We never thought we'd be able to just sit and enjoy coffee together, the Charming and Beautiful Susan and I, on a garden patio together, but God was pleased to see that it happen no matter how I prayed.

Wednesday, February 05, 2014

Book Review: When God Intervenes

http://www.amazon.com/When-God-Intervenes-Extraordinary-Prayer/dp/1414376820/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?ie=UTF8&qid=1391658491&sr=8-1

When God Intervenes: An Extraordinary Story of Faith, Hope, and the Power of Prayer 
Dabney Hedegard
Carol Stream, Tyndale House, 2013
273 pages

Dabney Hedegard believes in prayer. She has seen the results of answered prayer in the face of dire medical diagnosis and horrific physical circumstances.

When the author was six weeks pregnant, a tumor the size of a small football was found in her chest. Not the kind of news a woman in her early twenties is accustomed to hearing. The cancer had been growing for about six months to a year the doctor told her. The standard way of treating cancer like this in Dabney’s condition was to, one, perform an abortion, and, two, treat the cancer aggressively for six months to a year. 

Sounds simple enough. 

Not simple for a Christian, however, who believed her unborn child had as much of a right to live as the mother. Rather than terminate the pregnancy, could the doctor just cut out the cancer?

“Good question,” said the doctor. “But your growth is not one big mass. It consists of tiny pieces of cancer surrounded by scar tissue. It’d be like carving peanut butter out of Jell-O.”

That was the beginning of the fight for Dabney’s life. It was also the beginning of the fight for unborn Madison’s life.

What was unknown at the time was that this was the genesis of a ten year battle with health issues that, for this young couple, became a catalyst for faith that runs deep, a marriage with bonds of steel, and an exquisitely refined prayer life.

Not only do I have the privilege of knowing this author, my wife and I have watched this Dabney and Jason Hedegard walk through a trial that lasted for years. Their faith has been an inspiration, comfort  and example as we’ve experienced troubles of our own. 

This book is a must read. I promise the perspective you gain from reading this book will give you the attitude adjustment everyone around you has been praying for.

Monday, February 03, 2014

Allie's Big Move


The charming and beautiful Susan became very goal oriented about six weeks ago. She determined that Allie was going to start sleeping in her own room in her own bed.

Allie is seven and a half years old and has never slept apart from us since she was a year old. That’s when we became her foster parents. Allie is a severely handicapped child—a victim of shaken baby syndrome. She’s our granddaughter, biologically. She can’t roll over by herself or even self-sooth enough to fall asleep. So for the past six years, my wife and I have been rocking her to sleep, putting her to bed, and sleeping with her through the night so we can help her roll and reposition herself through the night.

That all ended about three weeks ago.

We sure didn’t know what to expect. We eased into it slowly by getting Allie’s room ready. We had been using the second bedroom in our apartment as a guest room. Susan decorated the room in a Minnie Mouse motif to celebrate Allie’s favorite cartoon character.

We got Allie’s room totally ready and then decided Allie needed her own bathroom and should take the master bedroom. Allie has a special bath chair and it makes sense to give her a bathroom that could stay set up for her use. So we un-decorated the guest room room and redecorated the master bedroom in Minnie Mouse. We added safety rails to the queen sized bed, pillow topped bed we have for her, and installed a video monitor so we can keep an eye on her through the night.

We began to prepare ourselves for separation anxiety. Susan and I take turns cuddling with Allie through the night so we braced ourselves for Allie to be upset for the first couple of weeks while she got used to the new set up. Susan ribs me because whenever I’m out of town, I miss sleeping with Allie so much that I can’t sleep. “You’re co-dependent on Allie,” she says. Susan was pretty indifferent. “I won’t need any time to adjust.”

Allie asleep under the watchful eye of a video monitor
Allie did fine the first night. And the second night. And the third. She sleeps for hours most nights, but sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night. She just lays there, her eyes incandescent in the freaky, infrared glow of her video monitor. She’s not scared one bit. I snooze until Susan sends me into her room to put her back to sleep and then I end up snoozing in Allie’s bed. But Allie sleeps, most nights, all by herself more soundly than she ever has. In fact, she’s become difficult to get up for school in the morning which is a total switcheroo from the way it was up until just a few weeks ago. When we were all in the same bed, Allie was the first one awake, ready to go at least forty-five minutes before the alarm went off. Now she’s a big sleepy head in the morning.

Susan is the one that suffers the most from separation anxiety.