This past week, I sat in a Kenyan Secondary School listening to my teammate Brittany Priess share her testimony with a couple hundred students. She spoke about her childhood and remembered the days when her mother began battling breast cancer. She recalled the thoughts she had at the time…her young mind filled with dreams about the day when she would get the news that the Lord had performed a miracle. She would imagine the day that she would celebrate her moms’ healing with her teachers and friends. Brittany shared with these students that, as she grew older, something changed. Rather than dreaming of the amazing things God would do in her life, her mind began to fill with a different kind of “what will happen…?”. “What will happen when my mom dies?”. “What will happen if my family falls apart?”. Her active imagination shifted directions: rather than imagining how the greatness of God would manifest itself in her life, she began to imagine how she would feel in tragic situations.
Her testimony rang far too true with me. As she spoke, I knew the Lord was speaking straight to my heart. I remembered the exact same scenarios in my life: as a child, I frequently imagined the day that my own mother would be miraculously healed. I often envisioned a news team showing up at our house to document the miraculous healing. I dreamed about having the opportunity to give God glory for my mom’s new found health on national news. I imagined the things my mom and I would do together. She frequently would speak about how she wanted to serve the homeless…I would love to do that with her, I thought. Honestly, at that time, I didn’t even think of her healing as a “possibility”; I was sure of it and I was simply awaiting the day when it would happen. I’m not sure when everything changed. I’m not sure when I stopped dreaming up the possibilities of what God could do in and through me, and instead began dreaming up hypothetical negative scenarios. I’m realizing that this mindset has infiltrated most of my life; rather than waking up in the morning expecting manifestations of the greatness of God during the day, I wake up thinking about how to avoid potentially negative and harmful situations. I’ve stopped dreaming with God.
I realized this on Sunday as I was walking to a small hut to make a “home visit” to a member of Deliverance Church. Prisca is an older woman who was widowed in 2002 when her husband, a bus driver, was robbed and killed on the side of the road by hijackers. Soon after the death of her husband, Prisca was diagnosed with cancer. Apparently, in this region, cancer is viewed as an equivalent to HIV, and it carries the same social stigma. As a result of her diagnosis, she was disowned by seven of her eight children, and the family was reduced to Prisca and her youngest daughter Eunice, age fifteen. Prisca, despite her frail state, works hours a day on a farm in order to feed Eunice and herself. She is unable to afford any treatment for her cancer, and grows weaker day by day. My teammate Jenny and I were asked to visit Prisca and pray for her. As I walked to her hut, I noticed the direction of my thoughts: I was anticipating a sad scenario. I was anticipating meeting a woman in a tragic situation and walking away downcast and brokenhearted. Why was I not anticipating a time of encouragement and redemption? Why not expect the greatness of God to show up in this hut?
Jenny and I spent time listening to Prisca’s situation and praying over her. We prayed in faith that she would be healed. Above all, though, we prayed that no matter what her physical state, the Lord would continue to encourage her in heart and lead her toward eternal rather than earthly treasures. I don’t know if Prisca’s cancer was healed as we prayed…that’s not something that I could see. I do know, though, that the Lord was lifted up in that place. I know that we could pray confidently trusting in His plan. I know that I could look Prisca in the eyes and tell her that the kingdom of heaven belongs to her (Matthew 5:3). I know that as we spoke and sang praises, the spirit in that hut was not one of heaviness and despair but rather one of hope and anticipation.
Jenny and I with our new friend Prisca
These are the things I want to dream about with God. I want my mindset to be one of hopeful anticipation of what He has for His people, knowing that His heart is good. I want to approach things with a heart full of joyful expectation rather than dread, knowing that, as a daughter of God, I have nothing to fear. I want to dream with Him again.
