I already shared numerous ways the Lord has brought me spiritual healing, as well as answered prayer, through my illness. You can find that post here. I felt led to share a very special way He answered prayer one night as I cried out to Him. I had been struggling with the wait, the time between His promise to heal me and the healing to come. I had been to doctors, went through tests and got a diagnosis. However, there are other types of doctors I could see if I wanted to, and I struggled with whether or not I should keep pursing medical opinions, or just wait.
One night when I was having a particularly bad day with my illness, I was crying out to God asking Him to show me if there was anything more I could do, any other doctors I could see, any other kind of treatment I should seek, anything the doctors were missing, for Him to please show me. I kept saying "what should I do???" over and over. Less than five minutes after that prayer, a friend of mine (who didn't know I was praying) text me and asked me what does "Be still and know that I am God" mean? As I marveled at the timing of her question I began to search my concordance and commentaries on this beautiful message from the Lord. I knew that was His answer as to what I should "do" and it brought me peace that night. This is just one example of how He has answered prayer through my illness. There are so many more examples like that where He directly answered prayer, brought me peace, enabled me to endure, that I could write a book!
The reason this particular event came to my mind this morning is because of a Bible study I started a few weeks ago on mentoring. It's called "Influence: Living and Sharing a Life of Wisdom" by Jan Silvious and Pam Gillaspie. These are the same two authors who wrote the study I was going through when I first got sick about not worrying and trusting our Sovereign God. When that study was coming to an end, I had asked Pam if they had any other studies in the works because I really enjoyed the one on worry. She told me that it was going to be a study on mentoring. Well, at that particular time (several months back), I had no desire to do a study on mentoring. I told myself "well, I won't be doing that one". Fast forward through months of God working on my heart and in my life and creating within me the desire to share Him with other women. I had completely forgotten about the study until I got an email for the enrollment. I signed up and am currently working on Week 2.
Can you guess what my assignment is for today?? It's to study God's word to see what it says about waiting on Him. Yes, a study on mentoring other people (that I didn't even think I would be doing) is asking me to dig deep into God's word to "learn to both wait on God and act with kingdom purposes". Interestingly enough, I am also doing a study on perseverance right now and just finished studying the life of Joseph, a young man who endured decades of rejection by his brothers, temptation and slavery before finally ruling over Egypt. That study asked me to exam my own life and how I handle the "wait" just as Joseph had to endure his own time of waiting. He did it all with continued faith and trust in God until one day He could say "what you meant for evil, God meant for good". (Gen 50:20)
Now tell me, is God good or what?? It's not a coincidence that I'm doing these studies right now. At this point in my life I'm struggling with being still and waiting. How could I know that a study on mentoring would ask me to examine what God's word says about waiting on Him? He put the desire in me to do the study and knew just what I would need to focus on this very day to bring me His continued encouragement and hope. Praise God, more answered prayer.
I'm off now to do my study on waiting... :)
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