Why?

It's time to start blogging again.  Today was going to be my first official 'child-free, husband-free' blogging morning.   It's been so long since I've been able to
write something on my keyboard other than School or Sunday School plans, or business messages or such.   I realised just recently that if I am to continue blogging, I need a block of time where I am not going to be interrupted by little people who need anything from a 'dink' (yes, she is still nursing at 2+), something to eat, look at what I made, my sister is annoying me, I can't find......., or big people – Honey, have you seen, do you have 5 minutes, could you just ring....?  Mum can you just look at this for a minute, the phone ringing, the dogs barking - you get the picture, right?  

 

So, here I am on my first official blogging day in six months, finally able to blog, because my three girls are asleep in the lounge-room, sleeping off the effects of last night – and yes the dogs are barking, but the phone hasn’t rung and no one has interrupted my train of thought, except my own thoughts of the urgent, ‘important’ tasks that always need attending to.

 

I thought perhaps I would come up with something profound for this morning's quiet, 'let me be' session at the library, just me and my tablet, but i haven't.  This morning didn't work for a couple of reasons.   My little girls spent all night up with croup - pretty scary stuff.   And my big girl at home spent all night coughing after fighting the flu bug for over a fortnight, which has now settled nicely on her chest.

 

Thanks Suzy Rowe for photo

But, even if that hadn't been the case, this morning would have been spent at the memorial service of a friend, only in her early 40s.  Not a particularly close friend for me, though she was close to many, but a lady I  have known for nearly 20 years, who died last week after a relatively short battle with cancer.   I would have loved to get to her memorial service, along with the many, many others who were planning to go, but not with two sick children.   She will be sorely missed by her husband and her three grown children and son-in-law and daughter-in-law plus other family and many, many friends in her church and beyond.   Everyone her knew her spoke well of her and we are all saddened by her untimely death. 

 

Why did she die?  I don't know.   There were so many who prayed for her healing, right from the beginning.  Did we not pray right, or enough?   Did we not listen to God on this one?  What did we miss?   What will we discover when we get to heaven and look back?    I don't presume to know  but I question that this was God's will.   Not to cause anyone any more distress, but just because I wouldn’t want that for my kids, and I know God loves His kids a lot more than I can.   But, He knows and sees so much more than we do – He sees the bigger picture, the greater needs, the point in suffering. 

 

A couple of years ago, a close friend lost her brother to cancer, again early 40s, leaving behind a wife and three teenagers, who still miss him dearly, and a sister and her children who miss him and the role he played in their lives.   Why?    There were many, many people who prayed for him at the time, fervently, passionately, endlessly.    What did we all miss?   Did we not listen to God?   Did we not hear how to pray effectively, righteously, fervently?   Once again, I question that it was God's will for him to die like that, then, with so much ahead of him and so many people needing him. 

 

I really don't believe that it's God's will for people to die like that.   There, I've said it.  I really don't.   I might be wrong and I know I've read many testimonies of the good that's come out of people dying - for those left behind.   I've read of the amazing stuff that happens in people, Christians and non-Christians, when someone dies suddenly or after serious illness.  

 

But, I don't understand why people do die even after much praying for healing.   Is it really God's will for people to lose their husband or wife so young, for young children to lose their mother or father so young, for a husband to spend the last 15, 20, 30 years of his life alone, for children to not know their grandmother, for a single mum to lose her only brother?  

 

These are the questions that come to me again and again – why, do we expect too little of God, ask for too little, just in case He doesn't do what we think He should?   I don't know.  These are questions that I don't have answers for.    But this question comes the loudest - do we just not know how to pray?    I do wonder.  

 

My mother-in-law died of cancer 11 years ago.  Her absence is still felt very keenly by her husband particularly and by her sons.   My children lost one of their grandmothers and the two youngest never knew her at all.   Her sister still feels the loss.  

 

Why?   We prayed for her healing - nothing changed.   But, when we started praying for her salvation first and foremost, something did change.  She wasn't a Christian at that point.   The above-mentioned others were - they were both devoted to the Lord and their families and their ministries.   My mother-in-law had gone to church all her life but really believed salvation was earned by those who could live up to a certain standard.    She didn't know God, though she'd heard endless sermons.    In many ways, her non-Christian father was her god - she loved him dearly, worshipped him and believed pretty much everything he said.  He was her reference point even when she was in her sixties and had been married for over 40 years.   He was her source of wisdom and comfort and identity and value.  His values were her values - she rarely questioned them.    Her father died a couple of years before she was diagnosed with cancer.

 

One of our Christian friends rang to find out how she was, just a month or so before she died, and I told her that I was gravely concerned for her eternal welfare.  We'd spent all this time praying for healing, but she wasn't even acknowledging God except to ask others to pray for her, albeit cynically.   Within weeks of my friend and I agreeing that we needed to pray more fervently for her salvation, she slipped into a coma and started smiling - hadn't done that for years - and started singing in the Spirit.  (She would have frowned and mocked that sort of thing if she saw someone doing it)     My hubby was with her and witnessed that - no one else did.  

 

Meanwhile, my older girls, who were quite young, and I, were praying for her at home and I saw her held captive in a dark place, and there was suddenly light and a way out of that dark place.   She was finally being allowed to walk free of her strongholds and her mindsets and realise who God really is and how unconditional His love is.   When I asked my hubby what time she started singing and smiling, it was exactly the time I saw her moving out of that dark place - 1.15 pm. 

 

Why was she free only after she slipped into a coma?  A lot of her resistance and her mindsets had been worn down by the disease and the treatment and the tiredness and perhaps in a coma she was no longer able to resist Him- His love His truths, His presence.  It was those mindsets and her father's values that had prevented her hearing the truth of God's Word during all those years. 

 

Would she have come to the Lord if she had been healed when we prayed for her?   Would she have come to the Lord if she had never got sick?   I doubt it.   She just didn’t see her ‘need’ of Him.  She was like the rich young ruler – done everything right.  Perhaps she never encountered Jesus for herself and would not have done had she not got sick.  Again, questions, but no real answers this side of heaven.  

 

These are the verses that come to me today – I always like to include a verse in my blog.  I guess these verses beg the question – what IS God’s will?  Do we know God enough to know?  Do we just presume to know, or don’t even try to know?   More questions.  Something to think about.

 

1 John 5:14-15   This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 15 And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.…