When Healing Comes

(April 2013)
We prayed for instant healing. God was silent.

I sat beside Mom as her tears fell.Too many mornings passed by while praying and feeling completely helpless. Some mornings weren't as bad as others but it would take her at least two hours to get out of bed. Her whole routine centered around her pain and she'd have to be wary of movements; an uncalculated movement could cause tear-wrenching pain. Near the end of the day she usually felt normal but in the mornings the pain would come back. I wondered why God would let her suffer from so much physical pain while she was dealing with all the emotional pain of losing my dad only months ago.

She consulted three different doctors, the last of which was a physical therapist who thought it was a bulging nerve. At long last, someone finally had a semblance of an answer. However, her exercises didn't seem to help. We kept asking people to pray.

Months passed. Mom wanted to stop asking for prayer but because of an encouraging community she continued to ask even if it meant not receiving any results. 

Then we got into a motorcycle accident caused by an attempted robbery. She had a fractured pelvic bone and couldn't leave her bed for over a month. Her bed was moved down to the dining room / living room so she wouldn't have to climb stairs. Not only was her left leg still giving her pain but now her right leg was barely mobile. 

Day of Accident (posted with permission from my mom)

Discouragement filled our cramped living space and on top of all Mom's sufferings we received despairing news that left more tear-filled days and nights. There was nothing I could do but kiss her soft, wet cheek and pray for her. 
 

We didn't stop praying. Our friends, family and community kept praying. People came to visit and bring meals. Sometimes when people offered to pray for Mom she was tempted to say, "It's no use." But she didn't. She knew God was faithful even though all she could see was discouragement.

Slowly Mom walked around the house more with her walker. She started standing without it (we even had an impromptu dance party) and eventually she forgot she even needed it, at which times I would scold her for making herself prone to a slower recovery. At the end of April we moved her bed from the living room on the ground floor back up to her bedroom. She could walk and climb stairs again.  She could leave the house.

One morning Mom said to me, "Kira when I got out of bed this morning I didn't even have to think about how to get up without being in pain." 

It took me a minute to remember how much she had suffered with daily pain only a month ago and now she was healed. She was healed! The culmination of extreme physical and emotional pain had lessened slowly and here we were at the end of it. Could it be? The healing was welcomed but the gradual victory of it had caught us off guard.

I then thought of how easily I could write off her anti-climactic recovery and tell people with a matter-of-a-fact tone, "She's better now" if they asked about her. I realized God did not choose to heal her instantly. In fact, He chose to let her experience more pain before He healed her completely. He had healed her leg which no doctor could treat. This healing was miraculous and deserved as much praise as an instant healing. How many times in my life had I let things slip outside of the praise of God because they came gradually and not instantly in my own timing?
 
My mom is healed. Praise God. Praise God! 

---
Huge shout-out to an encouraging and supportive community! Thank you family from overseas for calling and checking-in on my mom; thank you church community (and my mom's women's Bible study group) for coming over with meals, prayers, encouraging notes, foot massages and extension cords when we forgot to pay the electricity bill (thanks Beck family!);  for the Logos boys' high school soccer team for moving furniture, and last but not least thank you friends for laughter and company during hard times (especially coming ALL the way to Phnom Penh Thmei).