Last month we were in Yangon, Myanmar. It was a hard month, but it was also one of the best months of the Race.
I wanted to write this blog to talk about one of the ways I experienced disappointment and how the Lord took my disappointment and used it to change my perspective.
A few blog posts ago I wrote about the gift of healing and how that has been spoken over me multiple times while on the Race. At first, I didn’t believe that I could actually have this gift. After a lot of prayer and wrestling with the Lord, I felt that He was telling me to walk in this gift. And to NOT just walk in it, but BOLDLY walk in it with the power and authority that I have through Jesus Christ.
So, I prayed a big, bold prayer and told the Lord that if this is a gift He really wants me to walk in, then to give me an opportunity to pray healing over someone. And I told him that I wanted to see someone be physically healed in a miraculous way that only He could do.
BOOM.
My opportunity came.
The last week that we were in Myanmar, my TL Liz, told our team that there were three siblings who are deaf and mute that our ministry host asked us to go and pray for. She told us this on a Monday. She said she would be going to pray for them Thursday night and we were welcome to join.
On Tuesday morning, during worship, the Lord spoke to me.
He said, “Madison, why would you wait until Thursday and only go one night to pray for them when you could go every night for the next 7 days?”
My response: Ok God I hear you and You’re right.
So starting Tuesday, myself and a few of my teammates, circled around these siblings and anointed them with oil, worshipped, laid hands on them and prayed for a miraculous healing.
Night after night. I was being obedient. I was praying in the authority that I knew I had through Jesus. I had said yes to walking in the gift of healing and yes to what the Lord was calling me to.
Night after night. Nothing. No healing.
I wanted to doubt that the Lord could even heal them, but I knew deep in my heart that the God we serve is bigger than being deaf and mute.
We got to night seven. Our last night in Myanmar. Our last opportunity to lay hands on them & to witness a miraculous healing.
We gathered around them and spent time worshipping and inviting the Holy Spirit into the room. We anointed them with oil. I laid hands on each one of theirs ears and asked the Lord to open their ears to hear and their mouths to speak. I stood in the middle of the three siblings and prayed in the authority that I have in Jesus. I could feel the Holy Spirit in the room. We all finished worshipping and praying over them. My squad leader asked the siblings if they felt anything and they said they felt the Spirit moving inside of them. One of the siblings said he heard a sound while we were praying. We prayed over them again, but nothing.
I walked away that night feeling more disappointed and discouraged than ever before.
Fast forward a week, to month 6 debrief, where I was still feeling disappointed and questioning why God didn’t heal them. I had been thinking about it since the night we said our goodbyes and walked away from them.
We sat down as a team to debrief our last month. My TL Liz brought up the fact that she was still feeling the disappointment from them not being healed. I spoke up and voiced my disappointment as well. Our squad leader, Davante, who had gone with us every night to pray, told Liz and I that the Lord was telling him to tell us that we weren’t going there every night for them to be healed, we were going so that the siblings and their parents could see the love of the Lord and know that He loves them.
Immediately, all of the disappointment I had been feeling and the questions that had been running through my mind for over a week, we’re gone. I felt a supernatural peace in that moment, that I had been obedient and the Lord was glorified through it.
It wasn’t the Lord’s Will to heal them that night, and that’s ok. They will be healed in His perfect timing and I’ve been able to rest in that truth and promise. The Lord is STILL good and He is STILL faithful.
He changed my perspective that day. From thinking that because they weren’t healed the way I thought they should’ve been, that He wasn’t there working. To knowing that even when we don’t see what He’s doing and we don’t understand, He is always there, moving and working on our behalf.
I mean, one of the boys heard a sound while we were praying over them!!!! That is a MIRACLE, that I overlooked because I was too focused on the fact that they weren’t being fully healed and it wasn’t happening the way I wanted it to.
I witnessed the miraculous healing that I prayed for. A boy that has been deaf his entire life, heard a sound for the first time.
The Lord is teaching me to trust in Him and to have patience in His perfect timing. He’s growing me in my faith… to be able to shout, even when things don’t turn out the way I want them to, that HE IS STILL GOOD and His ways are perfect.
I want to leave you with a verse that the Lord has been reminding me of for quite some time now, and I couldn’t have thought of a better one to shout and declare, while walking through this season of disappointment…
“And if not, He is still good.” – Daniel 3:16
With Love,
Madison
