Annelisa is 14 Months!

My dearest, Annelisa Grace, or AG,

I should tell you my darling daughter that you are often called AG in text...text messages and emails most often. It works out nicely that your initials spell such a fun little word. Especially since you have been born into a family of Aggies. My dearest daughter, you don't HAVE to go to Texas A&M University...but you will be very brainwashed into believing, what each of us believe with everything in our being,...that it is without a doubt the BEST university in the whole wide world. (Thanks, and Gig'Em!)

Your fourteenth month held many fun discoveries about you...

It seems that you are afraid of loud noises, like the vacuum. This picture shows the only way I can vacuum the house...wearing you! I am so thankful that you have always enjoyed being so close to mommy and that baby wearing is easy to do in the Baby Ergo! 

You absolutely LOVE to cruise! You have gotten so good at it! You will cruise on anything that will allow you to hold on to it! From your push toy, to the walls! It's been so delightful to watch you figure out how to go forwards, backwards, and sideways. At the end of this month, you've started to stand without holding on to something momentarily and take a few steps holding onto Mommy or daddy's hands.  I am so proud of you and how much you are learning everyday!

On May 4, Farley turned five years old! You think Farley is SO funny! You love to sit in the door way or on the patio and talk to him in the yard. You smile at him and love to pet him when he lets you! I think you have a special place in his doggie heart. You have also started to throw his tennis balls for him...I haven't figured out if you want him to bring them back or chase them yourself! It is wonderful to see you develop a love for our pup! 

You had your first taste of chocolate, in the form of pudding this month! We think you enjoyed it! 

You have continued to take Zyrtec and Zantac each day for your allergies and GERD. You love the grape flavor of the Zyrtec! Often you try to feed it to yourself, one of these days I'll let you! Until then you can continue to hold the syringe after I'm done!

On May 10, Auntie Lauren graduated from Texas A&M. Above is a picture of her all dressed in her cap and gown waiting to get her diploma! You got to stay at Grammy and GP's house in Houston while the rest of us went to College Station to the ceremony! You had a great babysitter and had a fun day playing. I don't think you would have enjoyed the ceremony very much, especially since there was a HUGE thunderstorm at the end. Annelisa, your mommy is sometimes a very clumsy person, and running through the rain to the car, brought that out in me. You see, mommy slipped in the mud and had to ride all the way back to Grammy and GP's house covered in rain and mud. I'm hoping you have inherited your daddy's quick feet and stability!

On Saturday, after graduation, we went to the park with Auntie Erin! You got to swing, which is one of your favorite things to do! That afternoon we went shopping and had a yummy Mother's Day dinner with everyone at Grammy and GP's house. You especially enjoyed the steak and sweet potato! 

This picture is of you and Mommy on Mother's Day 2013! You have made me a very grateful and blessed  Mommy! 

On May 18th, we spent the afternoon with the Pailes side of the family taking pictures with Mrs. Laura Stiller and going to dinner at Outback. You were such a wonderful little lady! You smiled and played during pictures, waited like a champ at the restaurant, and colored with crayons after you finished your dinner. We love that God has made you a flexible little lady!

In typical Texas style, you, Farley, and me spent a couple hours in the closet during a bad thunderstorm on May 21. It brought strong wind and rain. Thankfully there weren't any tornadoes! You loved getting to play games, sing songs, and discover daddy's shoes!

This month you started saying "uh oh" consistently and correctly! You also say "all done" and sign it correctly. You sign "milk" for ALL food and drink! You recognize your favorite foods at the grocery store... blueberries, strawberries, grapes, milk, Cheerios, graham crackers, and Ritz. You seem to be trying to say Farley...it sounds a lot like "aaaaa, ley" and you always say this in a loud voice! You will point at me for MaMa and you sometimes say Dada, at Dada! I think you understand most of what I ask you and that you are getting closer to an explosion of words! 

Annelisa, you love to read books! Your way! A page here, a page there, always stopping to linger on your favorite pages! You have discovered the fun of taking things out and putting them away. You have started to "clean" with napkins and paper towels. You started to give me wet, open mouthed kisses! I love getting them when we say goodnight! 

Most importantly, you are our funny, sweet, wonderful little girl! I am so thankful to have you as my little companion! 

I love you my darling AG! 

Hugs and kisses,

Mommy 

Heavy Heart-ed to Trusting Mama: A Health and Life Update

I think this is my fourth attempt at this post...I am certain at this point that the starting and stopping, deleting, and starting over has been good for this topic and for this season in my life. I will warn you that this will be a long post. I am seldom pithy, and this topic will be no different.

The week before Annelisa turned one I began to slowly wean her to whole milk. The P.A. had given me her blessing in starting to replace one feeding a day with whole milk instead of breast milk. I chose the late afternoon feeding as the first one to drop. Annelisa did great! She loved getting to drink milk from her sippy cup, didn't seem bothered that I wasn't breast feeding her and I loved the new independence found in one less breast feeding session. After eight days of this routine, we proceeded to drop the morning breast feeding and replaced it with a whole milk sippy. This transition wasn't as smooth...she hit me, literally! She eventually relented and drank her milk and after a couple of days, she wasn't seeming to miss me breast feeding her, she was gobbling up her milk, and NOT hitting me! This new normal continued for another seven days. Then on April 3, I breast feed her for the last time. It was her bedtime feeding and I think I had a harder time saying good bye to that time with her than she did. The first couple of days had some transition pains, but she seemed to adapt quickly to her sippy of milk.

While the weaning process was ongoing, something else started happening more frequently. Annelisa was vomiting, on average, once a day with her solid meals. The vomiting had initially started with her ear infection in February, but had improved and was now steadily increasing again. We were at a loss for why this was happening and something in me told me this behavior was NOT normal! Each time we were at the pediatrician we brought it up, we were getting lots of various answers from the P.A. about what it could be. Then at her 12 month well baby, we left thinking that Annelisa had a really sensitive gag reflex, combined with some allergies. That seemed like a simple enough answer...until April 4. Starting Thursday, April 4, Annelisa fully transitioned to whole milk and solid foods for all her nutrition and she vomited nearly 12 times between Thursday and Sunday, April 7. Each time she vomited it was projectile, heart wrenching vomit. She never cried; she would cough, vomit, and then begin playing or eating again, depending on where she was when we she threw up. It was happening so much that I was serving her pedialyte and bland foods and keeping various buckets nearby to catch vomit. We also knew that this wasn't a stomach virus because she had no fever and no behavior or mood changes besides the vomiting. Needless to say, by the time Sunday arrived, we were a mess about what to do with Annelisa, how to help her keep food down, and we were tremendously frustrated that we didn't have a real cause to blame for the vomit. I was very worried about her growth, and what this would mean for her long term.

Philippians 4:6 says "Do not be anxious about anything, but in EVERYTHING by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God" (ESV, emphasis mine).

My heart cried out to God over Annelisa, the anxiety in my heart for her gripped me. I didn't like this, I wasn't thankful for her suffering, I didn't want this in my family. I desired a healthy child that could eat anything they wanted, play to their heart's content, and not worry about each cough and tickle, not have buckets strategically placed around our home, I yelled out to God with my heavy heart and hatred of our situation. Yet, as I yelled at God, I knew HE heard me, I knew HE knew my grief, HE knew my suffering, my desires, HE knew my heavy heart and HE still loved me and loved Annelisa more than I can ever imagine! HE is the one responsible for her life, her growth, her being born to us. She is HIS! The reality of my child NOT really being mine, struck me down like a load of bricks. I wanted (and still do) to make her mine, not daily entrust her to HIM that made her and entrusts her to us to raise in HIS ways. My baby girl isn't mine...She belongs to the Most High God.

On Monday, April 8, I made a sick appointment with a different pediatrician in our doctor's office. We needed answers knowing that the vomiting could not continue with out the risk of dehydration. That afternoon we both went to the appointment with Dr. Linh Ho, she was the answer to prayers! She was patient and kind, and she thoroughly listened to all of our concerns. I should add that Annelisa had a reaction to the varicella (chicken pox) vaccine breaking out in a post chicken pox rash all over her torso, arms, and legs on Thursday, April 4,which was also aggravating her eczema hot spots. Little Annelisa looked a hot mess in her diaper on the exam table...rash and red all over. Thankfully, she had gained a little weight since her well baby exam 11 days before, she weighed in at 20 pounds 5 ounces.

Friday, April 5, the varicella reaction rash.

After Dr. Ho completed her exam, she determined that Annelisa was likely suffering from reflux. She has always been a spitter and it seems that she was probably a silent refluxer before it became more severe and manifested itself with vomiting. Dr. Ho also thought that between her sensitive skin, eczema, and environmental allergies that we should begin a daily antihistamine routine. Her hope was that the combination of Zantac and Zyrtec would eventually help break the cycle of vomit for Annelisa. We were elated! With the prescriptions sent to the pharmacy, we left with hope of what to do and what the next steps would be if this regime didn't work to solve and relieve the problems for Annelisa. I scheduled a follow-up weight check for two weeks later.

The first 6 days on the medications were glorious! There was no vomit! It was amazing!! I was praising God, praising the doctor, and reveling in doing less laundry! We were slowly relaxing at meals, not grabbing for our handy buckets at each cough. Slowly returning to normal....and we even had a glorious weekend away at the Family Life Weekend to Remember Marriage Conference while our best friends kept Annelisa. God was so good to provide so many days of encouragement with Annelisa's health as well as a respite to reconnect as husband and wife!

The next seven days were more trying. On Monday, April 15, Annelisa threw up at lunch, she seemed to gag herself on a piece of pear as none of her previous cues happened. We continued on...Wednesday, April 17 she threw up twice, Thursday, threw up going to bed in her crib, Friday threw up once, over the weekend she threw up a couple of times on Saturday and once on Sunday...we were discouraged! Thankful that our two week follow-up was on Monday, April 22, Annelisa's 13 month birthday. Throughout this week, my dependence on God was my foundation. I got over my husband hearing my prayers for first time in our marriage and prayed over Annelisa out loud at meals, bed time, throughout the day. All that mattered was that God heard my prayers, HE sustained me. I sought Him for guidance, sought Him for encouragement. I'm so thankful for His provision through two women in my life that were able to encourage me and one who was able to speak from her own experience with reflux with her son as an infant several years ago.

Monday, April 22, our follow-up with Dr. Ho. Annelisa lost weight...an ounce...weighing in at 20 pounds, 4 ounces. She's thirteen months old....She's NOT supposed to lose weight!!!! I was devastated, frustrated, and concerned. Dr. Ho wanted to continue the same regime for the rest of the week since Annelisa had responded so well for the first six days. She felt like the dosage was appropriate for her and that we had gotten into a bad cycle. In hindsight, we agree with her 100 percent...and think that allergies played a bigger role in those seven days than we realized. Yet, on that Monday I wanted my baby to be well. So I trudged home and she didn't throw up until Tuesday! So after she threw up twice on Tuesday, I call the Pediatrician's office and left a message for the triage nurse. I wasn't happy that Annelisa was still throwing up, I was extremely emotional about it and I let her know how I really felt. When she called back to talk to me about it she listened to me like a champ! The job of a triage nurse is NOT one that I want...dealing with mothers and fathers whose child is sick is not my idea of a fun job! She told me that she would relay my concerns back to Dr. Ho, but in the mean time to continue trying the method changes Dr. Ho had recommended for giving Annelisa her medications.

The next evening, Dr. Ho called to discuss my concerns. I was a much more level-headed mommy! Annelisa hadn't thrown up since lunch on Tuesday, so my stress level was reduced and I could see the benefits to the changes we were making in the way we were giving Annelisa her medicine. She encouraged me, she listened to me, she reassured me, and then told me she would call again on Friday to see how things were. The rest of the week we continued to see improvements in Annelisa. Then Friday comes and I manage to slice my left middle finger pretty badly while making dinner. Dr. Ho called while we were in the ER waiting room. She was great even then! We felt like the dosage was working well for Annelisa, that the method changes had made all the difference in breaking the vomit cycle, and that we would continue at this dosage for another couple of weeks. Dr. Ho called in a refill of Zantac for Annelisa and wished me well with my sliced finger...By the way, dermabond glue is amazing! So much better than stitches!!

Two weeks later, on Friday, May 3, we had our last appointment to follow-up on Annelisa's weight and progress on the medications. She weighed in at 20 pounds, 8 ounces! She is gaining again! Better yet, she was staying on her 50th percentile growth curve! The medication has improved Annelisa's quality of life and allowed her to be an even more care free baby than before. We are learning that she can still have reflux episodes that end in vomit, but they occur less and less often. Annelisa has gone almost a 7 days today since she last threw up!! This is the longest stretch in months! We are learning how to manage her allergies better and help her to feel more comfortable with them. She has also managed Annelisa's egg allergy with us and prescribed an EPI pen in case her next inadvertent introduction to eggs leads to a severe reaction. Annelisa is now up-to-date on all her vaccines and has not had a reaction to the MMR vaccine! This is great news since it is a live vaccine based in egg product!

We feel so blessed with Dr. Ho as our substitute pediatrician throughout this process (our pediatrician has been on maternity leave since early January)! She was tremendously patient with all of us and has an awesome bed side manner with little Annelisa. We won't hesitate to see her again if our pediatrician is out or unavailable!

I entitled this post Heavy Heart-ed to Trusting Mama to shine to light on God's goodness throughout this season of doubt, suffering, and difficulty. I've had the joy of being apart of a Bible Study Fellowship (BSF) class and small group since December. God has used the lessons week after week to teach and mold me to be more like him. I am not claiming that I've succeeded at this, but that I'm a work in progress. Throughout the height of Annelisa's reflux process we were studying about Joseph's life in Genesis 37-50. Joseph is a man that God used to save many lives; he allowed Joseph to suffer through hatred, slavery, prison, and then elevated him to a place of great position and power in Egypt all while teaching him complete dependence on God. Some recurring themes that kept coming out of of the lessons were how well Joseph suffered for God, how he didn't lose faith, how he praised God through out his sufferings. I didn't feel like I was suffering well in my circumstances, I felt so heavy heart-ed and selfish for my desires for my family and Annelisa's health to be reality. God was patient with me and has brought me to a place of great trust in his sovereign plan for us. He knows our future and HE is sovereign over it! I am so thankful now for the path he has brought us through this spring. I have learned so much about God's character and His faithfulness to provide for us in ALL our circumstances. I have a new understanding for families whose children have GERD, like Annelisa and I am so thankful that God has developed that in me. Motherhood brings with it many lessons, the biggest one in my opinion, is learning to entrust our children to the Lord, the maker and creator of all, daily as they are really His!

Why Pray? By Jim Denison

Written by Jim Denison

A friend sent me this essay.  It quickly hit home with me—see if it does with you.

Satan called a worldwide convention.  In his opening address to his demons, he said, "We can't keep the Christians from going to church.  We can't keep them from reading their Bibles and knowing the truth.  We can't even keep them from biblical values.  But we can do something else.  We can keep them from forming an intimate, continual experience with Christ.

"If they gain that connection with Jesus, our power over them is broken.  So let them go to church, let them have their Christian lifestyles, but steal their time so they can't gain that experience with Jesus Christ.  This is what I want you to do.  Distract them from gaining hold of their Savior and maintaining that vital connection throughout their day."

"How shall we do this?" asked his demons.  "Keep them busy with the nonessentials of life and invest unnumbered schemes to occupy their minds," he answered.  "Tempt them to spend, spend, spend, then borrow, borrow, borrow.  Convince them to work six or seven hours a day, 10-12 hours a day, so they can afford their lifestyles.  Keep them from spending time with their children.  As their families fragment, soon their homes will offer no escape from the pressures of work.

"Overstimulate their minds so they cannot hear that still small voice.  Entice them to play the radio or CD player wherever they drive, to keep the TV, the DVD player, and their CDs going constantly in their homes.  Fill their coffee tables with magazines and newspapers.  Pound their minds with news 24 hours a day.  Invade their driving moments with billboards.  Flood their mailboxes and e-mail with junk, sweepstakes, and every kind of newsletter and promotion.

"Even in their recreation, let them be excessive.  Have them return from their holidays exhausted, disquieted and unprepared for the coming week.  And when they gather for spiritual fellowship, involve them in gossip and small talk so they leave with souls unfulfilled.

"Let them be involved in evangelism.  But crowd their lives with so many good causes that they have no time to seek power from Christ.  Soon they will be working in their own strength, sacrificing their health and family unity for the good of the cause."

It was quite a convention.  And the demons went eagerly to their assignments.

Has the devil been successful in his scheme?  You be the judge.  While nearly 9 in 10 Americans say they pray to God, only one in four is "completely satisfied" with his or her prayer life.  Only 60% of Protestants who pray are "absolutely certain" that prayer makes a difference in their lives.

There are many reasons we don't pray as often or as passionately as we could and should.  But near the top of the list is the question, "why?"  If we don't understand why we should do something, it's harder to do it.  "Because I said so" isn't an answer any child wants to hear from a parent.

A dear friend raised this issue with me recently.  If God knows what we are going to ask, why ask?  If he already knows what he is going to do, why pray?  If my prayer causes God to do some good thing he was not going to do until I prayed, what does this say about the character of God?  Why does he sometimes heal when we pray and sometimes not?  Why pray?

To obey God

The first answer to the question is the one children don't like to hear: because our Father says so.  Because Scripture tells us to pray.

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus was explicit: "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you" (Matthew 7:7).  Ask, seek, knock--each is an imperative, not a suggestion.  Each is God's demand of us.

We are to pray with urgency.  Charles Spurgeon, the greatest of all Baptist preachers, warned us: "He who prays without fervency does not pray at all.  We cannot commune with God, who is a consuming fire, if there is no fire in our prayers."  Maltbie Babcock agreed: "Our prayers must mean something to us if they are to mean anything to God."

Hear Spurgeon again: "The sacred promises, though in themselves most sure and precious, are of no avail for the comfort and sustenance of the soul unless you grasp them by faith, plead them in prayer, expect them by hope, and receive them with gratitude."  He added, "Do not reckon you have prayed unless you have pleaded, for pleading is the very marrow of prayer."

We are to pray urgently and continually.  Jesus' words are in the present tense: pray and keep on praying.  Our Lord prayed before light, after dark, all night long, continually.  His word commands the same of us: "pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5.17).

George Mueller, the great minister and man of faith, prayed patiently for five personal friends who did not know the Lord.  After five years, one came to Christ.  In ten more years, two more were saved.  After 25 years, the fourth friend came to Christ.  He kept praying for the last friend for 52 years, then died.  The fifth friend came to know Jesus a few months afterward.  Keep praying.

How do we pray with continual urgency?

• Begin.  Make an appointment to meet with God.  I read recently about a man who put on his calendar each day, 7-7:30, prayer.  But he kept missing it.  Then he changed it to say 7-7:30, God.  That's a harder meeting to neglect.
• In Jesus' name: "I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father.  You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it" (John 14:13-14).  Do you believe that you deserve to be heard, or do you pray on the basis of Jesus' death for you?
• According to God's will: "This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us.  And if we know that he hears us--whatever we ask--we know that we have what we asked of him" (1 John 5:14-15).  He will give us what we ask, or something better.
• For God's glory: "I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father" (Jn. 14:13).  Do you seek your glory or his?
• With a clean heart: "If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened; but God has surely listened and heard my prayer" (Psalm 66:18-19).

If God seems silent, check yourself by these biblical standards.  But know that your Father wants to hear you even more than you want to be heard.  And pray.  Let nothing stop you.  Do it today.

Because prayer changes you

A second reason to pray: time with God changes us.  When we are in the presence of God, his Spirit transforms us.  Prayer is the way the Carpenter shapes and molds the wood of our lives.  He must touch us to change us.  In prayer we do not talk about him, but to him.  We do not study him, we are with him.  And then our time in prayer makes us more like his Son, which is his purpose for our lives (Ro. 8:29).
Frederick Buechner said that we are to pray continually "not, one assumes, because you have to beat a path to God's door before he'll open it, but because until you beat the path maybe there's no way of getting to your door."  Blaise Pascal believed that "All the troubles of life come upon us because we refuse to sit quietly for a while each day in our rooms."  Gordon MacDonald adds: "I have begun to see that worship and intercession are far more the business of aligning myself with God's purposes than asking him to align with mine."

Oswald Chambers taught, "Prayer is the way the life of God is nourished.  We look upon prayer as a means of getting things for ourselves; the Bible's idea of prayer is that we may get to know God himself."
We pray because God tells us to.  Why does he want us to pray?  Because then he can shape and mold us, preparing us for eternity and using us on earth.  Prayer is the hand of God on our souls.

And so prayer positions us to receive what God's grace wants to give.  You could not read these words unless you were close enough to your computer to be able to see them.  Sitting in front of your computer screen does not mean that you deserve these words, good or bad.  Just that you can receive them.

In the same way, there is much God wants to give us but cannot until we are willing to receive his grace.  We have not because we ask not (James 4:2).  He wanted to guide me in writing this essay, but could not speak effectively to me unless I was ready to listen.  He wants to guide you through the rest of this day, but cannot unless you are willing to follow.  Time in prayer connects your Spirit with his, so you can hear his voice and follow his will.

In these ways, prayer does not change God so much as it changes us.

Because your Father always hears you

So we are to pray because God requires it, and because he uses prayer in our lives.  Here's a third reason to pray: because our Father always hears us.  Jesus promised: ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened.  No exceptions.  God has an "open door" policy with the universe.  Billions of people pray in thousands of languages, all at the same time, and God hears each one.  You included.

Jesus followed his promise with a parable (vs. 9-11).  Stones along the Sea of Galilee were small limestone balls, in appearance much like the bread of the day.  Fish-like snakes grew in the Sea; they were without scales and thus forbidden to the Jews as food (Leviticus 11:12).  Now, if you were a father in those days and your hungry child asked for bread, would you trick him with a stone?  If he asked for a fish, would you give him a snake?  Of course not.  And compared to God, we are "evil."  Our perfect Father who is love always hears us.  This is the promise of God.

The difference between hearing and answering

However, "hearing" and "answering" may not be the same thing.  We often say that God hasn't heard our prayers if he has not yet granted our request in the way we asked it.  But a father hears the child's request which he must refuse just as he hears the request he can grant.

Here's a one-sentence theology of prayer: when we pray, God always gives us what we ask for or something better.  He always hears us, and always grants our request in the way that is for his glory and our good.  He is not capricious, arbitrary, or deaf.  He is a Father who is excited every time one of his children calls him.  Every time.

The Greeks told a story about Aurora, the goddess of the dawn, who fell in love with Tithonus a mortal youth.  Zeus offered her any gift she might choose for her mortal lover.  She naturally chose that Tithonus might live forever; but she had forgotten to ask that he might remain forever young.  And so Tithonus grew older and older and older, and could never die, and the gift became a curse.

Our Father is no Zeus.  He loves us so much he watched his Son die in our place, on our cross, for our sins.  Do you know anyone who loves you enough to send their child to die for you?  One did.

Reasons God does not grant what we ask

The simple fact is that a loving Father cannot give us everything we ask in the way we ask for it.  A farmer prays for rain; a baseball fan prays for sunshine that same day, for that same county.  Both sides prayed for victory in the Civil War.

His timing may not be ours.  He might right now be working to answer your prayer, but you cannot yet see that work.  You're needing a new job, and have prayed for one.  Today God is engineering circumstances in such a way that a person is being promoted to the home office of her corporation.  Then someone in her office will be moved into her position.  Then that person's job will be yours.  It is going to take another two months for that process to become obvious to you, though God is working on the issue right now.  You just don't know it.

And God loves us too much to give us what we ask for, unless it is for our good.  When one of our boys was very small, he watched me use a razor blade to scrape paint from a window and wanted to play with this shiny new toy.  He was incensed that I refused.

Here we come to one of the great mysteries of the Christian faith.  When we prayed for something God did not grant, we can know that it was best that he acted as he did.  Even when we do not understand why.  The person did not get well.  The house burned down; the divorce became final; the car wreck happened.  It's not a question of timing, for the worst has already occurred.  And we do not understand why God did not grant us our prayer.

A very dear friend in our congregation suffered from cancer for many months.  I prayed every day for her healing.  When she died, I was deeply distraught.  Her healing would have brought such glory to God and good to her family.  I didn't understand, and still don't.

Dr. E. K. Bailey was the Senior Pastor of Concord Missionary Baptist Church here in Dallas, and one of the finest ministers of the gospel I have ever known.  Our friendship was priceless to my soul.  Several times, God healed my dear friend of cancer.  Then he did not.  I still don't understand why.

I must assume that it was not best for them to be healed.  They are both with the Father in glory, in a paradise we cannot begin to imagine.  One second on the other side of death, they were glad they were in glory.  In the providence of God, their contribution to his Kingdom on earth must have been completed, their reward prepared, their eternity made ready.  Even though I don't understand or like it.

That's the faith assumption I must make when God does not grant what I ask--he is doing something even better.  Though my finite, fallen mind cannot begin to imagine how that could be so, I must trust his love and compassion enough to accept it by faith.  Not until I became a father did I understand some of the things my father said and did.  Not until we are in glory will we understand completely our Father's will and ways (1 Corinthians 13:12).

What about free will?

Now let's complicate matters even further.  We have been thinking thus far about situations where God did not give us what we asked for, and trying to trust that he did something even better.  But are there times when his will is frustrated by our own?  When he wants to answer our prayer, but human freedom prevents him?

The question moves us into the arena of sovereignty/free will, one of the most debated and divisive subjects in Christian theology today.  We'll not go there except as the issue touches on a theology of prayer.  Some theologians argue that God's sovereign will is not subject to ours, that human freedom can never frustrate or defeat the divine plan.  They would not agree that misused free will could be a factor in God's answers to our prayers.  He will do what is best, however humans react to him.

However, it seems to me that in at least one area, God's will is limited by ours.  2 Peter 3:9 states, "God is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."  1 Timothy 2:4 promises that God "wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth."  Some believe God has chosen the "elect" who will be in heaven and those who will be in hell, and that human freedom is not determinative of eternal destiny.  They must interpret these two passages as relating only to the "elect."  But the verses seem in their context to speak to all of humanity, never mentioning the "elect."  It seems clear that God wants every one of his children to be with him in eternity.

Yet we know that many are lost: "If anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire" (Revelation 20:15).  Many will use their free will to refuse God's offer of grace.  And he has chosen to limit himself to their freedom.  He created us to worship him; worship requires a choice; God will not violate that freedom.  His sovereign decision to enable our free will causes him to honor that freedom.

If this is true, we have at least one area where human freedom limits the perfect will of God.  Is this possible in other areas as well, specifically with regard to prayer?  Could it be that a reason God has not answered a prayer as you asked it is because someone is refusing to cooperate?

God wanted you to have a particular job, but the person who was to hire you misused his freedom to hire his brother-in-law instead.  God intended to lead your daughter to a particular Christian young man at college, but she refused to follow the Lord's guidance.  You prayed for God to use your life; he intended for you a deeply fulfilling ministry to children in your church; but you refused his leadership.  Then you wonder why he hasn't answered your prayer.

I have not resolved this issue fully in my own mind.  If God is sovereign, his "good, pleasing and perfect will" must be done (Romans 12:2).  If God intends us to have freedom of choice, he must honor the decisions we make even when they are counter to his perfect will.  It seems to me that resolving this conflict in either direction creates a greater problem than we solve.  If God's will controls our own, our mistakes and sins are ultimately his fault (violating James 1:13-15).  If our will controls God's, he cannot fulfill his purposes for his creation (violating Jesus' claim that "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me," Matt. 28:18).

So I am ready to accept both sides of the paradox.  God is three and one; Jesus is fully God and fully man; and Scripture is divinely inspired and humanly written.  In the same way, God will accomplish his perfect will without violating my freedom.  There are times when we are like Joseph, sold into slavery by our brothers' misused free will.  At the end of the story we will be able to say to them, "You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good" (Genesis 50:20).  His love prevails.

Conclusion

Now, where does this subject come home to you?  Do you pray much at all?  Continually?  With urgency?  Is there a need you've abandoned, a request on which you've given up?  A place in your life where God seems silent?

Perhaps this man's experience will help.  An anonymous Confederate soldier wrote,

I asked God for strength that I might achieve; I was made weak, that I might learn to serve.  I asked for health, that I might do great things; I was given infirmity, that I might do better things.  I asked for wealth, that I might be happy; I was given poverty, that I might be wise.  I asked for power, that I might earn the praise of men; I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God.


I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life; I was given life, that I might enjoy all things.  I got nothing I asked for, but all I hoped for.  Despite myself, my prayers were answered.  And I am, among all men, most richly blessed.

So can we be.  This is the promise of God.