Love

I have gone to church my whole life hearing the same thing over and over... In general be a good person, do nice things, oh, and save some people if you get the time. If you don’t it’s ok, that’s what the church is for, but the church is the people, not a building. I have heard this before, but it has never been so real to me than right now. Since starting a home church with Cavan’s parents I have never felt God so close in my life. One of the biggest things to realize is that it is all about love, God’s love! It is about planting seeds in other people with the gifts that God has given you.

One gift that God has given every person is the ability to heal the sick. God gave us the ability to pray for and heal the sick through Christ. This is a great way to plant a seed into someone’s life, being able to pray for them while God heals them. It’s more than just going out and praying for people without first understanding the Father. This takes a relationship. God is looking for a friend not a just some servant who follows rules and is motivated by works alone. He wants someone who is hungry to know Him more and more. With this kind of relationship and compassion for others, God can heal people through you.

Since God wants to heal every single person, the only barrier to that goal is our brain. You know the scripture verse (Matthew 17:20) "If you have faith the size of a mustard seed you could say to this mountain move, and it will move." Having faith and relationship with God you pray and He will heal the sick. This sounds easy, but it goes against all human nature. The only way to make it easier is to go out and pray for the sick to break down rational thinking. Our family has done this and it is hard to do. We prayed for a young boy with one leg 5 inches shorter than the other, and missing a major bone. He wasn’t healed and he went through surgery the next day as planned. It was not a failure in any way, we later found out later that he went home earlier than expected and he is in less pain than they were anticipating.

Yes, I would have loved to see him be miraculously healed, but we planted a seed in his life that God can use to grow into something amazing. It shouldn’t hurt our feelings if the person that we just prayed for isn’t healed because it isn't about us, it is all about God and how much he loves us. In God’s eyes we took a step of faith and His eyes are the only ones that matter. Our home church has prayed for others, some with healing and some without. God only knows how we prayed. To Him a headache is the same as cancer, but in our minds cancer is a terrifying killer. That is what we have to stop. We have to get out of the rational thinking and get into God’s mind set. That is done again with relationship, reading the bible, praying, and spending time with Him during our free time. What we do in privacy has more impact on being friends with God than what we do in public.

I want to end with an amazing story that happened on Sunday December 26^th that I will never forget. We were at our home church with the family and most everyone was gone except for Cavan’s parents. It was a little bit different because everyone was out of town for the holidays. We decided to do the teaching for that day next week so everyone could hear.  We ended up talking about what we learned during the week and watched some short videos that we could use for future Sundays.  In some of the clips an average man was standing outside a mall asking people to sit in a chair and check their legs.  Some people had one leg shorter than the other, he commanded their leg grow in Jesus name.  Their leg grew.. right in front of his eyes.  It was so obvious on the videos too. As it got close to the kids nap time Cavan’s mom asked if anyone’s back was hurting due a leg being too short.  We checked and everyone was just fine... except for me, my left leg was a good half an inch shorter than the other. I was shocked! I had no idea. I sat in a sturdy upright chair to make sure and it was definitely shorter. Cavan kneeled down at my feet pick them up with my heels resting in his palms so we could see God do all the work. Cavan then said “left leg grow in Jesus name.” At that moment I felt my leg growing just below my knee and I remember Cavan’s dad saying “there it goes, it’s moving.” It grew slowly 90% and stopped, but the whole family kept praying, then all of a sudden it popped the last 10% and my legs are now perfectly even. Since then I no longer have lower back pain! Praise God for His mercy and grace to do creative miracles! 

I didn’t write about this until now because I wanted to say it in such a way that wouldn’t scare the skeptics but it would also encourage the believers. Some people find this kind of stuff weird or not even real. But I want to encourage you that this is very real! Once you experience what God wants in your life, you will never look at life on this earth the same way again. There is so much more than just asking God for a good day, or please don’t let anything bad happen, or I would like more money……. Those are all prayers about me me me me me me.

This life is not about us. If you lose you life, you will find it. You can’t have a resurrection without a death. In other words, die to yourself and you will realize how fulfilling life is when you live it for Him. Nothing in this life will ever satisfy every natural desire. This may sound silly or not make sense, but how can we ever expect to understand God’s way with worldly thinking.

If you have any prayer requests please let my husband and I know. We would love to pray for you!