God's Power

I have to admit that there are times when people talk about their answered prayers and I just kinda roll my eyes and think "whatever". I hear stories about how someone was literally clinging to life so everyone gathered around and started praying and their loved one was magically healed...just thanks to the power of prayer. It often bothers me when I hear survival stories, for instance the 9/11 attacks, when a person will say, "God blessed me. He saved me. It just wasn't my time." What does that say for all the people who didn't survive? That they weren't worthy?

I feel bad for saying that sometimes I doubted prayer. It seemed to me that everyone in the world was praying for me and the triplets when I was on hospital bed rest. E-mails were being forwarded literally all over the world and those people were forwarding them to their friends, and their friends to their friends, and so on. Yet, two weeks later Grace was born and she wasn't alive. Then the entire month Olivia was alive it seemed those same people were praying over and over and over. My entire church congregation were lifting us in prayer all the time. Yet, Olivia died. Were my babies not worthy of being saved? Did God not hear the millions and milllions of prayers and did he not hear my screams and cries, pleading for him to save my baby???

It's absolutely true that I feel this way probably 75% of the time. I just want to know why some people's prayers are answered and their loved ones live but my sweet, innocent babies didn't get to. Why would God bless me with three beautiful infants to carry in my womb if they weren't really meant to be?

I think Sunday's church lesson answered MY questions on this and really answered MY prayer of why things happened. I will share with you a story our preacher told: We have been having really frigid temperatures lately and actually got hit with a blizzard that had 4-5 foot snow drifts and temperatures up to 15 degrees below zero. COLD!! He told about how they have two cats that are actually outside cats but due to the weather, he and his wife let the cats in their garage and closed the outside door to protect them from the snow. He said one cat of the cats just cried and cried and cried and begged to be let back outside. He was not comfortable being trapped inside. Now, of course they didn't let the cat out because it was way too cold and they wished that the cat understood it was being protected. Now obviously the cat was safe and obviously it was in a much better place but it didn't know that. It couldn't understand the plan that the owners had for it and it was merely being protected. His point of the story was basically that God has a master plan for us, same as he had for his cats, even if they (we) don't understand it at the time.

We look at the world and everything in it through human eyes. God says, "I can see it. Let ME do it." We just have to ask him. Psalm 91:15 says: He will call on me, and I will answer him. I will be with him in trouble, I will deliver him and honor him. God has a plan. One question was, Does God intervene? The answer is Yes. But only when it is consistent with HIS will and with HIS plan. God really is there and he really has power. 1 Timothy 5:5: The widow who is really in need and left all alone puts her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and ask God for help. Even when it seems impossible, we have to keep asking and praying to God.

It's a hard pill to swallow to hear the words, "It was God's will". I hated when I heard that after I lost Grace and Olivia. Seriously, I would cry, does God really take away tiny babies? It's not God that "takes" them away. We all know we live in a corrupt and ruined world. God doesn't "make" them suffer and hurt. God lifts them to eternal life and SAVES them. It absolutely was God's will to have my babes in his arms and not mine. It's part of a GREAT BIG picture that I will never, ever understand. God had plans for me the very second I was born. The reason I will only have Betsy as my earthly daughter is all part of a plan that God has for us. We may not know for years and years and we may never know...it may be revealed when we are long gone and Betsy is grown and has her own grandchildren...or it could be God wants us to see the beauty that we have NOW and not focus on what we DON'T have. I miss my baby girls every waking second. But I know that God has them and they are safe and protected. They are where no one and nothing can EVER, EVER hurt them and that is already more than I could have ever given them because as much as I think I could have protected them and kept them safe, they are ultimately already the most safe they will ever be. We are all living in accordance to God's plan and each step we take leads us to where he wants us to be. He has the power and sometimes I forget that and want to take the reigns. It's hard to let that control go and let him take the wheel.