I didn’t
want to write this blog. Like really
didn’t want to.
In
fact, I have put off writing this blog for over a year. That’s how
much I didn’t want to write it.
I
could go into all kind of reasons why I didn’t want to write about
this. I don’t want people to think I’m crazy. The story doesn’t
end the way I wanted it to. There’s a good chance I’m going to
have to be more vulnerable in writing this than I want to be. There
are many people and deep emotions involved in this story, and I want
to be sensitive to them.
The
point is that I didn’t want to write this. But this story isn’t
about me. It’s about God and his power and love and faithfulness,
and who am I to not share those with the world?
This
is a story of hope and pain, love and loss, faith and doubt, life and
death.
This
is the story of Anthony, a 16 year old young man who in my brief
encounter with him, completely changed my view of prayer, faith, God,
and believing for the impossible.
It
all started a little over a year ago, when I was living in Nicaragua
for the month. My team and another team were working with Vision Nicaragua, ministering in a nearby village called Bethel. Another
one of our World Race teams was staying about fifteen minutes away,
working with NewSong Mission, in the community of Candelaria.
Because they were so close and both our organizations knew each other
and sometimes did things together, we had the chance to go visit our
friends and NewSong a couple times during the month. We got to see
their ministry in action, which mostly consisted of building
relationships with the youth in the community, spending time with
them and investing in them.
A
couple weeks into the month, a group of those youth went to the beach
one day. None of them could swim particularly well, and the waves
were large and strong that day. At one point, several of the youth
were caught in a rip current; all of them managed to make it back to
shore or were saved, except for one. Anthony.
Anthony’s
drowning was a huge shock and loss to everyone–our World Race
friends, the people at NewSong, and of course, his family, friends,
and community. Our teams at Vision Nicaragua heard about what
happened that day and immediately started praying for everyone
involved in the situation. We didn’t personally know Anthony, but we
knew a lot of the people involved, and we knew they were hurting
deeply.
When
Anthony didn’t return to the shore right away, it was fairly obvious
that he had drowned. However, the ocean is a big place to get lost
in, and Anthony’s body was lost. The search began for his body, for
some closure to this tragedy, and it continued for several days.
Meanwhile,
God was setting things in motion that were completely outside of the
little box that I had always kept him in.
I
ended up going over to NewSong the next day to see one of my friends
on that team who is a nurse. I was suffering from an allergic
reaction to mangoes that had been grossly misdiagnosed by a
Nicaraguan doctor. I was completely miserable, and I knew there was
a clinic there and that Carrie could help me. (Side note–I have
never had an allergic reaction to mangoes before or after this
incident. Coincidence?) Plus, I was glad for the chance to go over
and see how my friends were doing, pray for them, and do whatever I
could to support them in this difficult time.
Several
of us went over at the same time, and what I thought would be a quick
1-2 hour visit turned into an all-day thing. While we were there,
God made it very clear to multiple people that he had something crazy
in mind. Something that I would have never considered in a million
years. Something that was way beyond my realm of thinking or faith.
He
wanted us to pray over Anthony’s body to be raised from the dead.
Yes,
you read that right. Sounds crazy, right? I thought so, too. In
fact, when several of my friends pulled me aside to tell me this, it
was so crazy to me that it literally took my breath away. I felt
like I had been punched in the stomach. Who does something like
that? Who prays over a dead body (which hadn’t even been found yet)
and actually has the faith to believe that it will be brought back to
life?
But
God had already started challenging my faith over the last several
months, showing me that he loves to do things that we think are
crazy. He loves to take our mustard seed of faith and turn it into
something that moves mountains. He is the God of the impossible. So
I threw out every ounce of common sense and reasonable thinking that
usually dictates what I do, and I said ok. Ok God, if you want me to
do this, I’ll do it.
We
spent the rest of the day praying, asking for the Lord’s direction,
and trying to find a way to the beach. Finally, as evening
approached, four of us made our way to the beach, ready to take on
the impossible. However, once we got there, there was a problem.
Anthony’s body still hadn’t been found. How were we supposed to pray
over a dead body that wasn’t even there? So we started to walk along
the beach (that had already been combed by a giant search party
nonstop for the past 24 hours) looking for him and asking for God to
show us why we were there. My friend Vanessa felt like we were
supposed to meet and talk to Anthony’s dad. We knew that he was the
only one who hadn’t left the beach when all the rest of the search
party went home. But there were all kinds of people on this beach.
How were we supposed to know which one was Anthony’s dad?
At
one point, the four of us stopped walking, got together, and started
praying. Not even two minutes into our prayer, three men came
walking up to us all talking at once in Spanish. The only word I
could catch was Anthony. Thankfully, Vanessa is fluent in Spanish,
and quickly translated the rest of the conversation for us. This was
Anthony’s dad, uncle, and friend. They had been farther down the
beach, but when they looked up and saw the group of us praying, they
said they just knew we were friends of Anthony and were looking for
him, too. We had the chance to pray with them, encourage and comfort
them, and speak life over them. They also told us that they were
going back out at 6am the next morning to keep looking for him and we
were welcome to join them in the search if we wanted. So we made the
arrangements to meet them in the morning and finally headed home.
When
we finally got back, we had to explain where we’d been all day. When
we left that morning, we had planned to be gone for at most a couple
of hours for me to get checked out and get medicine. Now that we
were back hours later, we began to tell the rest of our teams what
had happened that day. When we finished, we were in for a surprise
of our own. Five of our teammates had decided to go to the beach
earlier in the day and pray specifically for Anthony’s body to be
released from the ocean, recovered, and brought back to life. We had
NO idea they had done this, and they had NO idea what we had done.
When we had left that morning, none of us had ever even considered
praying these crazy prayers. But God had been speaking to all of us
very clearly about the same thing, and we knew he was up to something
big. For the next couple hours, our teams got together in prayer and
worship, believing that God was about to do something crazy.
The
next morning came, and four of us headed back to the beach to meet up
with Anthony’s dad. We set out in a small fishing boat, searching
the water for miles around islands and inlets. After about an hour
and a half, we pulled the boat up to the shore of an island. We
split up and began combing the beach. In less than five minutes, we
heard Anthony’s uncle yelling for us. Although I couldn’t understand
everything he was saying, I knew it could only mean one thing. They
had found Anthony.
It
took less than a minute for me to run across that small island to
where Anthony’s body lay, but countless thoughts ran through my head
in that tiny space of time. “Is this for real? Did they really
just find him? God, I know you said we would, but now it’s actually
happened! Am I really about to pray over a dead body? Do I really
believe he’s going to come back to life? Do I really want to do
this?”
But
in the fewer than 60 seconds that it took me to reach him, I knew the
answer to all those questions was yes. Yes. Yes, this was for real.
Yes, I was about to pray over a dead body. Yes, I believed he was
going to come back to life. And yes, I wanted to do this. Not
because it was fun or exciting or going to be a great miracle. In
fact, it was the opposite. It was overwhelming and scary, and it
would have been an even better miracle (I thought) if he would have
been found alive. But I wanted to do this because God is a God of
life–abundant life. He is the Author and Giver of Life, the Breath
of Life, and he was asking us to be vessels through which he would
breathe new life into someone.
So
we began to pray. And plead. And beg. And declare. For two and a
half hours, we were flat on our faces in the sand, asking God to do
the impossible.
To
give life where there was only death.
We
read Scripture and declared truth. We had complete faith. We
prayed. We poured out everything we possibly had in us. We
worshiped the Author of Life. And two and half hours later, when
Anthony’s close family and friends came with a casket to take his
body away, he was still dead.
Hours
later, we returned to our base at Vision Nicaragua, completely spent,
exhausted, depleted. But we didn’t feel finished. We walked in the
gate, sat down, and kept on praying. For another hour and a half, we
prayed. We still believed that God could raise Anthony at any
moment. A casket isn’t stronger than God. But we also prayed for
his family and friends and community in Candelaria. Even though
Anthony was a Christian and we knew he was in heaven, we also knew
that his death caused a lot of pain. So we prayed for the people who
were left behind, who were grieving. We lifted them up when they
were hurting too badly to stand up on their own. And we worshiped.
Because in it all, God is still God.
While
we had been gone all day, our teammates had been praying continuously
throughout the day, taking turns making sure every single moment was
covered in prayer. We continued that 24/7 prayer for the next two
days, praying for those who were grieving and still believing for the
impossible.
That
God would give life where there was only death.
When
this was all happening a year ago, and I was journaling about it,
that’s where it ended. Those few days passed, Anthony’s body was
still locked in his casket, and we left Nicaragua to move on to our
next country. Seems sort of anti-climactic, doesn’t it? We prayed,
we believed, we asked for something crazy, something impossible. And
it didn’t happen.
Well,
it didn’t happen exactly the way we thought it would, at least. We
prayed that God would give life where there was only death, and
looking back a year later, I can see that God answered our prayers
for life. He breathed new life into Anthony when he stood in God’s
presence in heaven. He breathed new life into me. He breathed new
life into Anthony’s family and friends. He breathed new life into
his community.
A
year later, I read the updates from NewSong, and I see evidence of
new life in their community in Candelaria. I talk to my friend
Whitney who lives there, and she tells me story after story of people
whose lives have been changed because of the things God taught them
through Anthony’s death. Of how they know the love of the Father
more deeply than they ever have. Of how it feels like, even in the
midst of pain, God has breathed new life into their community. Where
there was once only grief, God is raising dead hearts and spirits and
bringing them back to life.
And
a year later, I look at my own life and see how God breathed new life
into me through that experience. Into my spirit which was once full
of dead faith, he has breathed new life and belief that he is the God
of the impossible. Into my heart which was once full of dead love,
he has breathed in me a deep compassion for those who are hurting.
That sure sounds a lot like life to me, at least the kind of life I
want–one full of faith and love.
I
don’t know why God orchestrated things the way he did those few days.
I don’t know why he specifically asked us to pray over Anthony’s
body. I don’t know why Anthony didn’t come back to life. But I do
know that God answered our prayers. And I absolutely know that God
is still in the business of raising the dead. He is still the Author
and Giver of life, the Breath of life.
And
I do know that God gives life where there is only death.
I
didn’t want to write this blog for a lot of reasons. But in the end,
none of them were good enough reasons to hold me back anymore from
telling this story. God has given me a testimony that he gives life,
that he raises the dead, spiritually and even physically. And even
if I haven’t seen it with my own eyes yet, I believe it.
“What
I’m about to tell you is true. A time is coming for me to give life.
In fact, it has already begun. The dead will hear the voice of the
Son of God. Those who hear it will live.” John 5:25
