Prayer

My writing has been put on hold these past few weeks.  Pictures haven't been taken.  Words not typed.   I have been missing a place that I find healing, pleasure and hope.

But, when your world is turned upside down by the word brain tumor you just go into survival mode.  Those extra few moments that I would normally take to write are spent talking on the phone, crying, worrying, just trying to avoid the pain of the reality.  When you are walking through the world on the verge of tears some things just aren't important. 

Amaya waiting to receive chemo

Yet, there is so much to share through the tears and the anger and the worry.  God is here speaking to me here in this place of survival.  To Megan.  To Amaya.  To my Mom and Dad.  He is guiding us and leading us and helping us through each day.   His blessings are abundant and not to be left unsaid.  I don't want to forget.   I want to remember this time.  This time of uncertainty.  I want to look back when I'm on the other side and remember this day.  This day when I took the time to sit down and write about what was in my heart.

Prayer.   So much transformation in prayer.   There has been so much prayer going on in the past month that I really needed to sit down and think about what prayer is to me.   I pray constantly.  Amaya is on many prayer chains in different states.  Our close friends and family and even facebook friends are looking upward crying out in prayer for our Amaya.  It's a beautiful thing.

And, it is healing.  I know it is healing.  I know that each word whispered on Amaya's behalf is heard, honored, and acted upon by God.   Prayer has been the center of my strength and will continue to be.  I am learning to pray over things, in things, because of things, and in the midst of things.     And, through this process I am being guided.  Guided in my prayers.   This what I want to share today.

I am learning bit by bit that prayer is not just asking for something. Prayer simply means that I believe in the presence of God.  That I acknowledge His truth, His power, His love and I cry out to him. Prayer is looking upwards, and affirming something that is already done.  Prayer is asking and believing that each time I or someone else asks for healing for Amaya that she WILL receive it.   It is done.  I have come to understand that prayer will bring forth what already exists around me.   I know this because as I pray, my prayer bends and changes with the reality of the situation. 

Just yesterday when my prayers were all wrong I knew to stop and transform my prayers.   Here is where God guided me back on the right path.  You see, I am afraid.   I am so afraid of losing Amaya that my fear turned into bitterness, worry, and anxiety instead of a prayers of healing and affirmation.   Thoughts fill my head constantly....what if chemo hurts her?  What is she becomes sicker?  What if this isn't the right treatment?  What if there is something better?    These fears turned everything into doubt.  I doubted my sister.  I doubted Amaya's Dr.'s.   I doubted everything.  In my doubt, I turned to the internet and started searching other options.  I found other options besides chemo.    I took these and presented them to Megan.    This fear brought about doubt, anger, and confusion.

Instead of coming to God with my faith, my belief, my courage.   I came with doubt, fear, and bitterness.  I turned to the internet for my answers and then worst of all I started to blame.   I blamed my sister for not being open to other things.  I blamed the Dr.'s and hospital imagining that Amaya's care was sub par.   I spoke with my mom on the phone and started spewing my doubt and fear.   I told her things like "Megan needs to get a second opinion".  "Amaya's Dr's should have found this tumor earlier, all the signs were there".  "Chemotherapy is not the only option."

This is where God honored me with Grace.   He honored me there in that place and then guided me to truth.  Truth that will help Amaya heal.  Truth that will bring the peace that I so desperately was searching for.

I slowly started to remember that God always answers prayers.  According to His truth, according to His will for my higher good, according to my faith.   I will always receive an answer.  This is only true when I do not allow thoughts of doubt to enter my mind.  When I courageously stand in my faith and stop blaming.

Today, my prayers are for complete healing.  Healing and power and light.    Prayers for love and faith and blessings.   And, this is it.  This is what exists.  God has already sent all of these.  Right there in the Denver hospital today Amaya received her first dose of healing.  Her first round of chemotherapy.   When I stood up in courage and proclaimed them, they became my reality.  You see, what I pray for, I already have.  It's my reality, it's my truth. 

And, my world is filled with these blessings, this grace, and this love and all I can do is stand in awe.