Feel Better

In this busy season of life it is funny how God can get our attention and speak to us through our children.

During the middle of running all over the place trying to get things done I raced home so that some friends could pick up an old freezer I was giving away.  We came flying into the driveway and practically jumped out of the Expedition before the vehicle had stopped.  This particular week had been one of the busiest of the month and I had a student staying with my family who had been pulled out of an abusive home situation with me as my friends showed up to get the freezer out of our storage room.

During the melee of moving the freezer and watching my two boys and this student I took my eyes off Noah who was running in the driveway laughing and playing tag with Toby.  Everything seemed fine and we began to move the freezer out.  A moment later Noah screamed out in pain and the long draw of breath before the next sound let me know that this was going to be a good one.

Noah had fallen and deeply scraped his left knee.  We quickly set the freezer down and headed out to Noah to tend to his wounds.  I picked him up and took him into the house and got the necessary first aid items together and bandaged his knee.  As he was crying I felt awful for him, you never enjoy seeing your child hurting.  I pulled him in close and hugged him and kissed him continually and told him he was going to be OK.  Noah seemed to not hear the words that I was saying and kept saying through his tears, "Make it feel better."  I didn't know what to do so I just kept hugging him and trying to console him but he continued to say, "No, make it feel better."  So finally I asked him, "Noah, what do you want me to do?"  Noah replied, "Ask Jesus to make it feel better."

To be honest, his response caught me off guard.  I am a pastor.  I work hard to get others to be connected to God and to include him in every area of their lives.  But, in this moment it didn't even occur to me to ask Jesus to make it feel better.  So with Noah in my arms and the student standing near us I began to pray.  Noah closed his eyes tightly, his head moving back and forth slightly with pursed lips.  He was intensely praying with me for his knee.  As intense as any adult I have ever seen pray.

It was a simple and short prayer.  I remembered what my friend Dan had said at a recent staff meeting at work that our Faith is grown when we pray for healing and then take the next step to ask and see if God healed it.  So I asked Noah if it felt better.  Noah stood up and gently walked a few steps and said that it did feel a little better.  The student who was staying with us got a gleam in his eye and emphatically said, "Jesus did that!"

I had no idea what was happening at that moment.  The whole situation had taken me off guard.  Here Noah had been hurt, inconsolable, and he lead me to pray.  The student had been watching the whole thing and recognized it was Jesus.  Meanwhile, I was nearly speechless.

A few days later our Stirring baptism was taking place and I still had not taken off Noah's original bandage.  At this point I expected to see a huge scab, or at the very least an open scrape.  When I took off the bandage there was nothing there at all.  Not a scab, nothing.  It was like it never happened.

In the Greek, (the language the New Testament was written in) God and Jesus promise to send us the "Paraclete".  The word "Paracleta" means "the one who answers our cry."  How often I forget that it is not until I cry out and seek Jesus that my own wounds, pain, and brokenness can be healed. Unless that cry surges up from the consciousness of our true reality and need for the Holy Spirit the Holy Spirit will not come.