“Prophesy”

The last three weeks have been crazy! They’ve not only been the darkest and loneliest weeks of my life but also the most powerful, impacting and supported time of my life.  I know that’s contradictory.  The whole journey has been a picture of contradiction.  Death and life.  Faith and fear. Solitude and support. Waiting and fighting.  I don’t know how to explain it and I’m not sure I will be able to organize it all into anything understandable but I’d love to… simply for selfish reasons. I process through writing and I haven’t even begun to process what we’ve been through.

I just can’t seem to find a place to start.  What I can say is that worship got me through every moment of this trial. When I had no faith, no more tears, no answer, nothing I could do…God deserved my worship and it gave me a focus that was larger than Steve and I. When I couldn’t pray anymore or didn’t know what to pray, certain songs became the cry of my heart in a way that words, alone, weren’t able to do.  I’d make a pretty heavy bet that I’ll never hear certain songs again without having a powerful memory of where I was and what I was praying while listening to it. The color of the bedspread in the hotel room.  The smell of the soup sitting on the table that the hotel staff brought me because I wasn’t eating. The sound of the rain at 3 am outside my window as I paced the floor praying and crying and worshiping. God started preparing these songs for me back in February.  I’d originally started the playlist, “I Have To Believe”, as an encouragement to myself as I walked through a difficult time but they suddenly, and very clearly, became anthems of strength, faith and hope directly pointed towards this trial that I could never have imagined we would walk through.  God not only used them to focus my heart on Him in worship, He spoke promises and truth to me, challenged the depth of my faith and breathed hope into my soul through them.  And honestly…I think they flowed from my hotel room, into Steve’s hospital room and brought God’s presence into that place.  Not that the songs are miraculous but the prayers of God’s people are. So many were agreeing with the truths in these songs and I believe we entered Steve’s room through the spiritual realm and lifted him up to our daddy. I don’t mean to sound “weird” but I know that God knew how hard it was not to see my husband for 5 days as they told me he was dying.  I believe he is big enough to somehow allow so many of us to enter that room, place our hands on his body, plead for God’s healing and intercede more passionately than many of us ever have.  These songs transported me to that place.  They allowed me to find the warrior in my trembling heart and to fight.  Fiercely! From miles away. They changed me.  This journey has changed me.  And I hope I’ll never be the same.

I’m home now.  I just ran for the first time in almost a month and it was cathartic.  This song,  “Prophesy” , came on at about the 1-mile mark and I was back in a Russian hotel room praying for life with all that was in me. Trying desperately to believe the word spoken over Steve that “He shall not die but he shall live and declare what God has done.” My chest tightened and I lost my breath.  But I quickly found myself thanking God and lifting my hands in gratitude and worship as I walked home on this beautiful road of ours.  I believe my God, the King of the Universe, literally breathed life back into us.  Not only Steve’s body but into so many of us as we’ve come alive to the power of prayer and the closeness and concern of our loving Father.  Into His people as we have discovered the power of His church as a unified and focused army.   I hope we will continue to seek Him desperatly and that His breath will fill our lives because, then, we will breath life into the world around us.

I am forever grateful that I could lay on Steve’s chest last night and feel his arm around me. I’m giddy that we can celebrate his birthday tomorrow with chocolate  pudding and cake in the hospital.  But, I am also acutely aware that God just as miraculously breathed life back into this heart of mine in a way that I’ve never known and could never have imagined.

You truly are a good, good Father, God.  Thank you – and may our lives bring you glory and praise until our very last breath.