Faith.

I have had some interesting thoughts on faith lately as Blaise and I have walked through his accident, operations, therapy, inability to work and function normally, and pain.

We have reached a point in Blaise’s recovery in which NOTHING has gone like it was expected to go and Blaise will very likely have a decision to make on Thursday about how to proceed with his finger–to keep or not to keep? I KNOW that our God is a miraculous healer and the best physician there is, so I have absolutely no doubt that if He wanted Blaise’s finger healed, it would be healed (I saw a pretty amazing miracle in Nasir last July…I believe in His healing powers).  The thing is, though, it isn’t healed.  It isn’t healed after one of the very BEST hand surgeons in Indiana meticulously put it back together.  It isn’t healed after Blaise followed his therapy and care instructions to the letter.  It isn’t healed after a second surgery in which not one, but TWO skin grafts were completed to save the tissue.  It isn’t healed after the 24-hour “wait-and-see” period.  And more importantly, it isn’t healed after we, along with our awesome prayer warriors, have spent 6 weeks in faithful prayer for complete healing.

This leads me back to Job.  It is such a shocking reminder that while God is obviously capable of healing every illness or injury on Earth–down to the very last paper cut–He has chosen not to heal certain ills.  I mean, just take one glance around our own communities and we will see the ruin of sin, the pain of injury, the toll of illness and death.  Sometimes God gives and sometimes God takes away.

I feel like sometimes in my own prayer life there sounds a hollowness.  I start praying “fluffy bunny” kind of stuff…you know, for everyone to be happy, for things to be peaceful, for rainbows and Skittles to fall from the sky (okay, not that last one).  Not that these things are wrong to pray for…not at all, but recently I have really stopped to think about this.  In light of Blaise’s accident, my prayer life has changed a little.  A subtle shift, but not as many “fluffy bunnies.”  When I first heard about the accident and drove to the hospital, I didn’t know what to pray for because I didn’t even know what the injury was, so I prayed that God would give us strength and give the doctors wisdom.  Then, once he went into surgery and in the weeks that followed, I prayed fervently for a 100% recovery and full use of his finger.  I know God is capable, so my prayers reflected it.  The doctor told us that the finger would never again be fully functional, but I prayed in the face of that.

However, as Blaise has had one complication after another, even after two surgeries to fix one little finger, my prayers began to change.  I began to realize that Blaise very well might lose that finger, and that God might allow it.  Not because He’s “a mean kid sitting on an ant hill with a magnifying glass” (Bruce Almighty), but because He has a purpose.  I read a book over the weekend called All That You Can’t Leave Behind by Ryan Murphy, a missionary at the Rift Valley Academy in Kenya.  He said, “[God] doesn’t waste any pain, and in fact, He’s grieving over our pain, too” (p. 97).  It isn’t that I don’t have faith in God’s healing powers, but sometimes, just like in Job, God takes away.  It is our job, then, as followers to have faith in what God will do with that pain.  It will become something beautiful.

We joked about it before, but over the last eleven days (since the second surgery) we have had some heart-to-heart conversations about how becoming an amputee may help Blaise to make some connections with people when we move to Africa.  So. many. people. have lost limbs and digits there.  Sometimes a simple cut, without proper hygiene and treatment, turns into an infected abscess that leads to losing a leg.  Sometimes children go out to play, stray just too far off the beaten path, and legs are blown off by land mines.  Sometimes random work accidents happen just like happened to Blaise, and a man loses a finger or two.  It happens all of the time, and they are not so lucky to have awesome hospitals and top-rated surgeons who can even attempt operations to save limbs.  If Blaise does lose his finger, and if it helps him reach out to even one lost person, then wouldn’t it all be worth it?

I will try to sum up my ramblings, so hang in there!

Sometimes I think that other believers look at us funny when our prayers don’t fit a mold.  Blaise’s grandma prayed over him yesterday, for complete healing.  Now, I have not given up on praying for a MIRACLE, but I also acknowledge the fact that God may chose not to save Blaise’s finger.  I know that He–in His infinite wisdom and divine purposes–may allow Blaise to go through the anguish of losing it.  It is then in that acknowledgement that I praise God for using us, thank Him for choosing us to go through this trial, and ask Him to give us strength to persevere and that His name would be glorified no matter what happens.

It may not look like “fluffy bunny” sort of faith–you know, that everything will have a storybook ending–but it is the faith I have in our Lord that Blaise’s pain will not be wasted.  So if you ask me, and I tell you that it looks a lot like Blaise might lose his finger, it isn’t that I doubt God’s healing powers, it is that I have faith that no matter what God choses to do–give or take away–it is for His purpose and our good.