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Day 18 - prayer


 A few housekeeping things - I often write in the evenings and I think I ramble on sometimes from tiredness and poor focus. Second, I want to tell a cohesive story about Jack’s life but I tend to intertwine it with our current everyday life. Sorry if that means it comes out in choppy or scattered story telling. 

I have struggled to feel encouraged by the Lord lately to be frank. I’m busy with work and school and a toddler and husband and social life - all blessings. But things that take up my time and leave little to sit with Jesus and ask him to work in my heart. 

I was deeply encouraged by the sermon on a short and simple passage in Romans (15:30-33) at church today. Paul is preparing to take a gift to a Jewish church that was given by a gentile church. He’s asking for prayer that the gift would be received well, that it would build bridges, that it would bring the Jewish people to Jesus’s word. And then he asks for prayer that he would safely reach Rome with joy and be able to take refuge and rest there. 

His request was not met. He didn’t reach peacefully - he reached Rome as a prisoner BUT would later be given opportunities to share the gospel even as a prisoner. Our pastor made a clear statement that when we ask God for something and we get a “no” or a “wait” - God is usually preparing for a better yes that we can’t yet see. 

So I’m saying, we sat and waited and prayed for healing for Jack day after day, and the answer was no. He did not get better. His kidneys did not restart. His heart never pumped on its own. He never came off all the machines alive. 

This was not new info to me today but it is a fact that I will sit with forever. I may never see the better yes or the why behind why God allowed Jack to pass away. But i know we prayed and asked for healing knowing that if it happens, it is God’s will. I believe in a God that loves me enough to send his only Son to die on a cross for my sins, so I could know God and be right with him and be in relationship with him. So I believe that it is all for his good and his glory even when it isn’t clear. I believe that he is completely sovereign and nothing is outside of his control or his will and He is good. Some days I struggle to remember that. But that’s life - we need the gospel preached to us over and over again. 


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