The Thing That Happened

It was Wednesday, October 8th, 2014. It had been over a year since my injury, since I had been able to walk. I was perched awkwardly and uncomfortably at the end of my bed, about to practice standing, when I got a text from Jacob. It had been a month since Jacob and I met, and we had become what I termed “God friends.” I talked to Jacob about every part of my journey with God as it unfolded. He knew my struggles, including my self-acknowledged weakness in prayer. So when I realized he was texting me to ask me to pray for someone, I had a flicker of skepticism;You really want my hopeless, second-rate prayer?

The text from Jacob explained that there was a woman in his church whose niece, Amy, was 29 weeks pregnant and she needed immediate heart surgery. They had attempted the procedure the day before, but it hadn’t gone well. The surgery had taken twice as long as expected and now there were complications. Along with addressing her heart problem, the doctors were hoping to buy more time for the baby's gestation. Would I pray? I answered, “Absolutely!” and without hesitating to move back onto the bed or get in a more comfortable position, I immediately began to pray.

My prayer started like all my prayers had begun in the past, hesitant and stumbling. I tried to piece a prayer together, but as usual, there was no mistaking how bad I was at praying. I began thinking about Amy and her baby, who was at risk of being born preterm, and I thought about my experience with the death of my son who had been born prematurely. I felt my sadness and grief at the loss of my child welling up. When my son was born, I had prayed for him, not the prayers of a Christian who had faith, but the desperate, desperate prayers of someone faced with agonizing loss.

I felt a connection with God growing deep in my heart as I prayed for Amy. Then it became something more—God showed me His love for His Son as I loved my son. He showed me His pain that joined with my own. In that moment, I became a believer in Jesus Christ, the Son of the wonderful God who first pursued me; I believed in God and, now, He had introduced me to His son in this most intimate, personal, powerful way.

As I sat on the edge of my bed still trying to pray, I suddenly felt the power of God move within me. I have no other way to describe it. Then, as God's Spirit filled me, I started saying the words to a perfect prayer. There was no hesitation, no awkward silences. The words lifted up for Amy and her child, through me, were no longer my words. I was only aware of what I was saying for the first time as I heard myself speak the prayer and even then, although in English, I still only understood half of what was being prayed. Most significantly there were references to promises God has made to those who have faith, promises I knew nothing about.

At the same time, I felt energy building behind the perfect prayer that was escaping my lips and somehow I felt the prayers I had prayed for my own son years ago, combining with the prayer I prayed now, amplifying my prayer for Amy. (Trust me if I was making this up, I would have left that part out because it makes no sense to me, but I'm telling you exactly what I experienced.) Then, suddenly, I felt the energy leave me as if it was speeding towards Amy. If in that moment someone had told me Amy was healed, I would have had no hesitation believing it. I knew it was true, she would be healed.

That would be a nice place for this testimony to end, but that is only the beginning of the story. In that moment I was changed. Through that experience with God, and His expression of His love for His Son, I became a believer in Jesus Christ, deep in my heart where God had forged a connection with me over the past few months. I was sobbing, and as I began to calm myself, I realized that I felt differently. I didn’t feel like myself anymore. It was confusing. What had happened to me? Later, when I approached Jacob about this, I called it “the thing that happened,” because there were no words in my lexicon for what I was experiencing.

My prayers changed immediately after that experience. They were no longer interspersed with silences when I didn’t know what to pray, or stammering as I tried to find the right words. For the first time, the right words started coming to me easily each time I prayed. If I didn’t know how to pray for someone, I would call on the Holy Spirit to take over the prayer for me. Since that day, this call for assistance with my prayers has never gone unanswered. Through the Holy Spirit there is power in my prayers. God took me, someone who couldn’t pray, and made prayer my calling. I have seen so many of my prayers answered, I’ve heard the Holy Spirit whispering to guide my prayers, and leading me, constantly leading me, to know what to pray for people. When I’m at a loss for words, the Holy Spirit takes over and prays the prayer for me.

It’s difficult to find a place to end this blog, because this was the beginning of my life with Christ. I want to rush into telling you everything that has happened—my struggles, my calling, my heartbreak, my joy—my whole journey given to you as evidence of Our Living God. Thankfully, if the inspirations I get to write these blogs is any indication, in time you will find my whole journey represented here and through it you will learn there is never a reason to doubt that we have a living God in heaven who wants to be in relationship with you as He has with me. "For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said, ‘I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.’” 2 Corinthians 6:16

If you're already a Christian, I ask that you keep your heart and ears turned to God. We may not all experience God in the same way, but His message is the same for all of us—through a life of faith, faithfulness and prayer, learning by reading and studying the Bible, through serving others, and following His commandments, we will experience final victory in Christ.

If this is new to you and you feel a twinge of hope or joy when you read that scripture, or if you just want it to be true, that is God calling to your heart. How can you respond? You can reach out to someone you know who is an active Christian. You can make plans to attend church. First, though, you can pray right now inviting God into your life. Even if your prayers are stumbling and halting and you don’t know the right words to pray, pray anyway—trust me, God will understand.