But if not...

Back Story:

I am trying my best with the medical stuff, but no promises for 100% accuracy.

This is C.

When C arrived to CDA he was just a newborn. When he was about 6 months they found out that he had a heart murmur, but it was likely to fix itself. Then at a check up when he was 3 they discovered that it hadn’t, and so he was diagnosed with a Ventricular Septal Defect, and heart surgery was scheduled for late June. That one fell through, and it was rescheduled for this Friday. He was admitted this morning for two days of poking and prodding before it happens.

There’s a quote floating about Christian social media that always catches my eye:

It comes from the book of Daniel, where Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were being threatened with being burnt to death in the furnace if they didn’t worship idols as King Nebuchadnezzar wanted them to. (Much of my memory of this story is mixed in with the Veggie Tales about it, forgive anything that’s not quite right.) So when they were condemned to death in the furnace, this is what they said:

If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O King, that we will never serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.
(Daniel 3:17-18)

They knew, they knew that their God was able. But they also knew that He might not save them. And that didn’t change anything for them, their faith was strong enough to really, truly say, “Your will be done.”

C. slept over at our apartment last night, on a school night. He crashed volunteer night, ate burgers and crisps, watched a movie and stayed up way past bedtime (both his and mine...)

When we were at volunteer night, we prayed for him in English while he sat quietly (ish) on my knee. We prayed for wisdom for the doctors, peace for him, the other boys, the tias. We prayed the pain wouldn’t be too much, that he would recover quickly.

And someone prayed that he would be healed completely.

Rewind 8 years, and I was 17 and in Colombia for the first time, and there was a baby girl called Angie. She also had a hole in her heart, and she also needed surgery. As a team we prayed for her in the house, and some of us prayed for healing, while others prayed for the wisdom of surgeons, comfort, peace. All the things we prayed last night.

I remember someone saying to me after, “I couldn’t believe you young ones prayed for complete healing, it seems so naive. I would never have thought of it. But God can do it.”

And here’s the thing, for Angie, God did do it. Her next echo showed no problems, she never had heart surgery. She’s now a healthy 8 year old living with her aunt and uncle in Colombia.

But if He hadn’t healed her like that, He would still have been good.

Back to last night and when C. finally fell asleep at 11.30pm, the prayers we had said were still running through my head. Why hadn’t I prayed for healing? Did I not think God could do it, or was I just scared that He wouldn’t, and my pride would get hurt?

And then I thought about how if I had prayed and He hadn’t answered as I intended, He would still be good.

So I did pray. Sometime before midnight I placed my hand over C.’s heart and I prayed for supernatural healing. And when I was pushed out of my own bed at 3.30am and couldn’t get back to sleep, I prayed again. And I hope that when they test him again today or tomorrow it’ll show that that little hole has fixed itself.

But if it doesn’t, He is still good.

And if C. does get surgery, I pray that everything will go completely smoothly and he’ll be in and out in a week and he’ll recover well and there will be absolutely no complications.

But if it doesn’t, He is still good.

And I pray that somewhere in Bolivia there is a family who are wanting to add a little boy to their family, and that they will adopt him, even though his paperwork says that he has had heart surgery, and that’s a big undertaking for any of us, let alone in a third world country.

But if they don’t, He is still good.

We have this way of pushing our own agendas onto God, and when He doesn’t do what we want, we doubt His goodness - like He had promised to do everything we wanted Him to. When He doesn’t let us have the things we wanted, and gives us the things we never wanted to have, He is working all things for our good. But it’s not the good we wanted, it’s not the good we were planning on, and so we get annoyed. We think He’s not good, we don’t realise how much better His good is than ours would have been.

And then we read the bible, or we hear a podcast, or someone tell us it in the street and we realise that He is still good.

And sometimes that’s great and we’re thankful and sometimes it makes us so angry because how can He possibly be good when people are raped, and kids are dying, and bombs are thrown and bullets are shot and this whole world is going to pot.

But we know it, we know that the truth is that He is still good.

It’s like when you know your parents are right but you really wish that they weren’t.

So I’m praying for healings, and I’m praying for adoptions, and I’m praying for all those big scary things I think could never happen. Because the Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego story frees me to do that. It shows me that I can pray boldly and God can answer those prayers. And it also shows me, maybe more importantly, that I can pray boldly and God can not answer those prayers, and that when that happens I can be sure that He is still good.

Please pray for Cliver with me. Share this post, or the Instagram post I posted earlier, or write your own post - let's cover him in prayers to a good God.