When is the last time you had a good cry?
I am, admittedly, a crier. I wasn’t always. In fact, I think I used to yell instead of cry so maybe that’s a little progress. 🙂 Anyway, today, most of my tears are joyful. And most of my tears well up and fall sparingly…I don’t sob too often.
Yesterday, the tears fell uncontrollably ~ it was a purging and I felt a lot better when I was done. The first time was when I was distracted by email on my phone during a staff meeting. Okay, disclaimer here.** The subject was our health insurance and I’m not enrolled with that plan so my attention wasn’t really warranted.** Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, I’ll continue.
I came across an email that alerted me to an update on Ezra Matthews’ fight against cancer. The news hasn’t been very promising lately and I really felt like this particular update was going to be more of the same…it was. It was a post written by Kyle, Ezra’s father, and it was raw. He informed the reader that Ezra was, in fact, dying. His breathing was labored and his tiny kidneys were no longer functioning. Ezra hadn’t had a wet diaper in about 24 hours and we all know the progression of things when the body can no longer rid itself of toxins. I began to cry. I began to feel hopeless.
One of our pastors was informed of the email and, fortunately, enlightened the staff to the dire situation. It wasn’t an accident that 40+ of us were all sitting in one room right at the exact moment we needed to join together in prayer. And prayer is what happened. The kind of prayer that had moved from just asking for healing and mercy to something more immediate. Pleading with God to hear our cries. As one pastor prayed aloud, “Just give him one more day and, God, if it’s your will, make that one day two days…two months…two years…” my tears, and the tears of so many others in that room, fell freely. Crying moved to quiet sobbing. My heart was breaking for this family.
Last night…late….while I was still unable to sleep from the emotional day, Kyle updated the care page once again. Sometime in the early afternoon, Ezra peed enough to wet two diapers. His chances for survival, in Kyle’s words, went from “none to slim”. We’ll take that for now. Slim is something we didn’t have yesterday morning. That is an answer to prayer. Not just the prayers of our staff but the prayers of countless people who have taken Ezra into their hearts and made a point of petitioning God on his behalf.
God is hearing his people.
I laid in bed last night after reading this and tears, once again, flowed freely. Ezra’s battle isn’t won…not by a long shot…but he is fighting and God is intervening. If that isn’t enough to make you just want to sob with gratitude, I don’t know what is.
Keep praying.
Keep praying.
Keep praying.
<3