It still amazes me when God chooses to answer a prayer request. Last night at church one of the men shared one such answer with us. A woman at another church had been in pain for more than a year. She had no insurance and she couldn't afford to go to a doctor to see what was wrong. It finally got to be an unbearable pain so she was forced to get medical attention. An ovarian cyst was discovered and biopsied. It was determined to be cancerous. Where it had been left to grow and spread for so long the doctor told her there were only two outcomes a that time. First, she could not have the surgery and would not live very long, or second, she could have surgery and they would attempt to remove the cancer. Then she would undergo chemotherapy and would still probably not live out the year as they did not think they would be able to remove all of the cancer from her body as it was very advanced. She told them she had a third option still. She called her pastor who came and prayed with her at the hospital.
The doctors prepared her for surgery and told her family and pastor that it would be lengthy due to the spread of the cancer. They took the woman back and after a relatively short time the doctor came into the waiting room shaking his head. The cancer had not spread and they were able to get all of it. The invasion was not as bad as it should have been given her level of pain and how long she had experienced it. Our God is amazing!
On the heels of this very large answer, He also chose to answer my own prayer in another way. For more than a week now I have had a lot of pain in my heels every time I walk. In the mornings when I get up to get Baby A, I almost cry with the pain of attempting to walk across my room and up the stairs to get her. For the last two days, the pain has been moving up my legs. Tuesday my family and I went grocery shopping and I ended up having to leave and sit in the van while my family completed the shopping because I was in pain every time I took a step. It was like that at church last night also, so I prayed for relief.
No, I don't have a story of instant healing. But I did get an answer. It came, as many of my answered prayers seem to be coming lately, through a devotion from Proverbs 31 ministry that I get daily in my email. I know why my feet and legs hurt, I am severely overweight...again. I have tried losing weight again several times within the last 2 months. I seem to do well for a few days or weeks and then it all falls apart. In the devotion from Proverbs 31 titled Honestly, I got my answer from God. Like Lysa I struggle with food and am stuck in that wonderful cycle of eating, feeling bad for eating and gaining weight, eating to soothe the feel bad feeling, feeling bad for eating and gaining weight, eating more. I have listened to others say that food was a form of idol for them. I have even admitted that myself when I lost 40 lbs before baby A surprised us. Now though, I seem to be full of excuses.
I don't have time to exercise because baby A isn't napping well. It's easier to just grab something than it is to make something healthy. Eating junk is less expensive than eating healthy (Darn Little Debbie!). I am to tired to exercise today. My feet hurt. And there is my answer. My feet and legs hurt because I weight to much. Sure, God is definitely able to point at my feet and legs and heal them, but what purpose would that serve? I would still be turning to food rather than to Him for comfort. I would still be putting food first. Like Lysa, I don't want to spend the rest of my life in this cycle.
It's funny, this morning my feet didn't hurt nearly as much as I came up the stairs. Yeah, they still hurt, but I think they hurt so that I would be aware of them when I sat down to check my email. I think they hurt just enough that I would get His message to me today. It was like He was saying, "I don't want you to hurt, but you have to see what you are doing. If I take away all of your pain, I know you won't see it."
So thank you God, for the pain in my feet and legs. Thank you for the answers you give - from the miraculous healings to the small whispered answers. Thank you most of all for caring about each of us enough to take the time to answer.
