James 5:16 “Therefore confess your sins to one another AND pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.”
That’s the ESV version. The AMV (Amy Martin version) goes something like this:
“Pray for each other for all kinds of things, but especially for healing, the prayers of God’s people get stuff done!”
In the wee hours of the morning a few weeks ago I sat in the hospital next to my mama. I found myself somewhere between midnight vital signs and dark-thirty. There was her rhythmic soft snoring in my right ear and a Jane Austen documentary playing from my phone in my left, I thought about that verse.
I looked over to my right and mama was lying on her side sleeping and I thought what a gift of grace and mercy I had been given. Immediately my thoughts turned to all the prayers of the people and how powerful and effective they were, how what seemed like an impossibility just a few hours before was now the reality.
My mama had a stroke, what could have been a bad one. Had things been different words like catastrophic and detrimental, would be the only ones to describe what happened rather than healed, good, expected full recovery.
I thought about time and a domino effect that led to that moment in time and the providence of what happened, and I told my Lord I was sorry. I confessed my sin, not so mama could be healed, but because she had been despite my confession. I call it backwards thinking, I think backwards leading up to an event to determine if I can sort out what happened. It is a strange practice but I must admit I learned it from one of my favorite writers. This writer would take the reader backwards in time discovering the facts and actions surrounding circumstances until the logical conclusion could be reached. Oftentimes it is a series of seemingly small or unrelated circumstances, possibilities of chance, choices and actions that have an impact on the world and way the reader is living today.
The entertainment business has also taken up the practice. There are shows that recreate the moments leading up to a disaster in order to figure out what and where things went wrong to produce such catastrophic outcomes. My backwards thinking moments do not always come with such dramatic and intense results like say, a bridge collapse, but in this circumstance, in that moment, it was life over death.
Several Sunday nights before, 4 weeks to the day actually, I sat in an emergency vet holding our little dapple doxie as she died.
I was wrecked.
Life has been especially grueling and one of my sweetest, most comforting, and constant companions was that little doggie. She hardly was out of my presence and when I so desperately needed a tangible reminder, encouragement, and ever-present friend that little wiener-dog was it.
Even if I hadn’t said out loud but a few times, I’d said to God in my heart at least a dozen if not more,
“Really God? Really? I mean life is crummy right now but did ya have to take my dog too?!”
That question was always met by silence, and a bitterness about it all was growing inside of me. Isolation, silence, anger and resentment are like growth hormones for bitterness.
I kept trying to remind myself of what I know, God’s ways aren’t my ways, He is good and He can be trusted but I just kept meeting that with “But what good could come from taking my one doggie friend?”
I now know.
A good that He couldn’t have explained to me in full but I reckon He knew I’d figure out in the wee hours of the morning, while sitting in a yellowish hospital chair, next to mama with a Jane Austen documentary playing in the background.
A couple of weeks after Macy died Charlotte and Shelton adopted a pup from the pound (I don’t even think that’s what it’s called anymore, but I digress.) A pup that is named Dot and belongs to Charlotte. Had Macy not died there would be no Dottie Joe Martin in my house.
Dottie is kinda dumb. But I’ve discovered she’s also kind of smart. She’s a bonafide mutt of some sort and a puppy, for sure. I had been trying to teach Dottie some basic things necessary to survive her puppyhood under my roof.
The Sunday before had started out rough, so as divine providence would have it I was home, walking that dumb Dottie when my mama called me. Any other Sunday afternoon I wouldn’t have been home. Any other Sunday afternoon I would have been miles and more than just minutes away.
Any other Sunday I couldn’t have done what was done to save mama’s life. Any other Sunday I wouldn’t have had Dumb Dottie training in progress when life took a drastic turn.
It wasn’t until that moment in the hospital when I knew and understood what I had no way of knowing or understanding before. As I sat next to mama (who has mostly regained everything lost, who is expected to make a full recovery but just needs a little time to get there, who received a life-saving, “time-critical” medication, exactly within the window of needing it) I knew and understand why my dog and sweet friend had to leave my side at the exact moment she did. And for the first time in my life I recognized and understood God’s sovereignty in a real and tangible way.
My eyes began to water and I confessed my sin not so that, but because my mama was healed.
Mama is home and besides some medication management and minimal changes she has done remarkably well. I will admit she can’t cough without my mind going to dark places. In time, I am trusting as mama heals, my heart will too. And I recognize that it was my backwards thinking and God’s higher thoughts that yielded that outcome.
Priceless 