Healing and Wholeness

So a few weeks ago it was suggested to us that maybe we should pray that my dad be healed.  In January my dad was diagnosed with Lewy Body Dementia.  My dad is 75.  I hear about a disease with the word dementia and I think of that as being kind of an old person disease.  I'm not saying that 75 is old, (especially because my dad reads this blog) but it is three quarters of the way to being 100.  100 is kind of old.  Getting older happens to everyone. EVERY DAY.  We are all getting older.  And I have some thoughts about how we pray and what we hope for people who are getting older. 

A few weeks ago I was made aware of a friend of a friend who has a 6 year old who sustained a traumatic head injury.  I prayed for that family and for that little boy and I prayed that God would bring healing to his brain.  I listened to a suggestion that we pray for my dad and I realized that I felt almost guilty to ask God to heal my dad.  If God is going to heal someone, well, there are kids with cancer, or serious injuries or illnesses... and my dad is already 75.  Maybe we should just accept that as the gift that it's been and pray for the more "important" things.  As if God is limited in his power to heal.  Like we might use up something that could have been used for someone else.

I thought about it for quite a while.  We do want healing for my dad.  But more important than physical healing, we want spiritual healing. We want spiritual wholeness for all of us. And sometimes spiritual healing happens in the context of physical suffering.  I can tell you that, because I feel like that is something that we are experiencing already. 

But we do want for my dad to live in all the fullness that God has for him in all the days that he has.  And I really believe that God wants that too.  And I suddenly felt a conviction that we should pray for my dad. 

Last week, on October 29, we celebrated that 11 years ago, Timothy and I met.  We had our first meal together at Taco Bell.  We celebrated and Timothy made a really amazing Mexican feast that was really nothing like Taco Bell.  :)  Nobody complained.  Then after dinner we explained to the kids that we were going to pray for Grandpa.  We reminded them that Grandpa has a disease in his brain that makes his brain not work quite right.  I fumbled around in telling them that getting old and dying is a part of life, but that we want to pray for Grandpa and ask God to allow him to live in all the fullness of life that He has for Grandpa.

So we did.  We gathered around Grandpa and we prayed.  In their own way the kids prayed for Grandpa and for his brain, and thanked God for giving us Grandpa and that he is so kind and loving.  We all prayed and asked God to bring healing in whatever ways He wants, and that nothing, not even a disease would prevent Grandpa from being all that God wants for him to be in this season.

It was really a beautiful time for our family even just to pray our hopes for wholeness for Grandpa. It felt like a football team huddle, with a reminder that we are together in this and that together we know that we are on the same team, and our game plan is really to praise the Lord for His goodness to us, regardless of the outcome.

I think sometimes I hesitate to walk into something like that with my kiddos because I am afraid that they might get disappointed or confused.  I don't want to create a platform for my kids to be disappointed with God.  Especially if I have low expectations for anything to change.  But all of this really is revealing of my small faith.  And if we never walk with them into a situation where they might be disappointed, then I don't have the opportunity to navigate that with them. 

Tonight it has been one week since we prayed for Grandpa.  As far as we know he still has Lewy Body Dementia.  But since then, he hasn't suffered from the dizziness that had been so debilitating.  But more importantly, we have had some really good conversations as a family and with our kids about paying attention to what God is doing, because we know that He wants fullness of life for all of us.