Miracle Working God!

"You are a miracle working God.  You are a miracle working God.  You are a miracle working God." This is a new song that just came out by Bethel and it's stuck in my head, just those few lines.  I can tear up just listening to those couple of lines.  I can sob big ugly tears listening to those lines.

The song is about Lazarus and how Jesus brought him back to life.  Gosh, Ive been thinking a lot about Lazarus throughout the last several days.  I wonder how he felt being brought back to life, by Jesus.  I had to slow myself down on that last sentence to make sure that I caught the gravity of it.  What a huge truth.  I can't imagine what it would be like if Jesus brought me back to life because He loved me.  It's the only recorded story we have of Jesus bringing someone back to life because He was sad and cared deeply about them.  I can't help but think that if I were Lazarus it would be a huge self-worth boost to have Jesus (the son of God) bring me back to life because He loved me so much.  I wish we knew what Lazarus did after that.  Did it radically change his life!  Did he spend the rest of his life sharing his testimony of what God did with everyone he met!  Did joy, peace, hope and faith define his every day life!  I wonder the miracles that came out of Lazarus out of his literal God given miraculous life!  

I can't help but also think about all that God has done in my life.  The amount of miracles God has done in the last several months, be still my heart!!  The amount of miracles God has done throughout my lifetime just in my life and that of our jewels, be still my heart.  I would even dare to say that there have been Lazarus size miracles in my own life and that of my jewels.  Eight years ago I was lying in a hospital bed, my body literally fighting to live.  I had typhoid which I had caught while in Ghana.  It had spread into my lungs.  I don't think about that time much.  I think I should as the enormity of what happened leaves my heart full of gratitude of the miracle God did in redeeming and restoring my body.   When we have jewels that have had to literally fight for their lives in some capacity or another, the miracles are easy to see.  We have one jewel who was days from literally dying and then God intervened, Lazarus size miracle.  We have one jewel who grew up in a Nation where babies with deformities were literally left to die yet our jewel was protected and lived, Lazarus size miracle.  We have one jewel who was born in a Nation where abortions happen every single day yet this jewel was protected and lived, Lazarus size miracle.  

We have one particular jewel whose trauma is off the charts, as in we all would curl up in a ball sobbing if I were to recount all that she went through very early on in life.  The truth that she's doing so incredibly well and is overall thriving is a literal every day miracle.  We have had to work very hard for this jewel, harder than for any other jewel and we still have to, that simultaneously being a miracle.  For years we did not want to change and we did not want to give this jewel what she needed.  God changed our hearts.  There is no other explanation as to all that happened in Sam and I as we quite literally completely changed how we parented.  Every day I see miracles happening in this jewel's life.

Yet I believe that simultaneously there are miracles that happen every single day.  If I still my heart, and really open my eyes I see small yet significant miracles every single day (a smile, a hug, a text, a meal, a coffee ...)

The fact that we only have one more round of intravenous chemo left, that we as a family even made it to this point is quite honestly a miracle.  The reality that there have been major challenges but cancer has not destroyed us is another miracle.  The too many to count ways that God has used so many of you, is a miracle after miracle after miracle.  The truth that our little Jax jewel has had major low points but is still his joyful awesome self, miracle.  The gift of the cottage that we are right now staying at with one of the most generous and kind families I know, that became available exactly when we needed it is another miracle.  I could go on and on ... the miracles are so many that I could quite literally write a book and fill up the pages simply from the last year of all that God has done.

I can't help it but go back to Lazarus, Jesus brought him back to life because He loved him.  Isn't that exactly what Jesus did for us on the cross.  Truth.  Miracle.  The gospel.  Isnt that also exactly what Jesus does when He gives us grace in whatever we are walking, when He literally redeems us from the hard that sometimes defines life or is an element of our life.  Do we then go and shout it from the roof top, spending the rest of our lives making sure everyone knows what Jesus did.  Do we then spend the rest of our lives literally poured out for Him because of what He did, doing it out of how much He loves us.  I can only imagine this is what Lazarus did.  

I feel like Jesus has many many times done that in my life.  He has pulled a Lazarus miracle and directly intervened and has as a result has given me life (a better life).  I think about Jax, God totally interrupted our life with him.  We thought our life was good, living our comfortable and convenient North American life.  Okay, I realize that for some we don't quite fit the mold, but honestly that's what it felt like to us.    Adopting Jax has made our life soooooooooo much better!!!  Jax is such an incredible jewel and I'm so stoked that I get to be his mom.  Anyone who meets him can easily see this, as he's so clearly an anointed little spirit.  Adopting Jax has also refined us in ways we never anticipated, yet in ways that we needed to be refined.  It has grown our faith in ways like nothing else has.  It has made our eternal perspective that much clearer.  It has brought us closer to Jesus and to each other.  It has taught us to live life without fear even in the midst of the most scariest moments.

I remember being at Refresh this past year and listening to Beth Guckenberg speak at one of general sessions.  Her talk touched and challenged my soul so deeply I remember asking Jesus that He would help me to have a closer relationship with Him.  Beth talked about how Jesus was her literal breath, that was the intimate relationship I wanted to have with my Jesus.  That's exactly what has happned, as I've had no other choice as I've desperately needed Jesus all the time.  Jesus has become my literal and tangible comfort through many dark and lonely nights.  Jesus very quickly and very early on in this treatment became my literal breath.  I would not have made it through the last several months without Him.  I would be crushed, in despair, depressed, and anxious all the time were it not without His literal strength, presence, comfort, hope, and peace.  That's just the reality of what we have walked.  God has taken the very hard and used it for good in my life, and has given me life.  He has given me a more focused thankful Holy spirit filled life.  This is another miracle and I praise Him for it.

It honestly does not seem real that within a few weeks Jax will have his last round of chemo.  My spirit is so excited to have a visual of there being an end to these last several months.  I miss my other babies and hubby so much.  It's a daily ache that my Jesus has given me the strength to keep living with.  Our family is ready to be back together again, and to begin the healing of all that the last year has brought.

As I reflect on the end I keep thinking about another miracle, one that the doctors have no explanation for.  They are trying to figure out what happened after Jax had the positive spinal tap, as there were no tumors in his brain to match the results of the tap.  In addition, every spinal tap after the initial one has been negative.  Aside from the one positive spinal tap, there has been no evidence that Jax's cancer cells got past the optic nerve and past the wall into the brain.  It's a mystery to them and they have theories but they really don't know what happened.  I do, I know what happened.  Jesus performed another Lazarus size miracle.  Jesus eradicated the cancer from Jax's brain.  Jesus did an excessive miracle, one that has no other explanation, except to point towards Him!

Are you speechless?  Do you not know quite what to say?  That's what I think happened, and yes I will spend the rest of my life sharing what God did.  Jesus gave our son back his life because He cares deeply about Jax.  Again I am reminded that He does this every day for me because He loves me so much too, as does He for you.  I love the truth that there is nothing we can do to make God love us more, and that there is nothing we can do to make God love us less.  That's a truth to every day build our life on.  That's a truth to every day pour out our life from.  Jesus redeemed our whole life, so shouldn't 't should give Him our whole life back.  Shouldn't we life a life that really should never fit the American mold, as it should instead be poured out for Jesus with everything we have!?  Be still my heart, if you and I spent the rest of our lives living this way!

💙. Maria