Holding Onto Hope

My granddaughter is a year old and so full of life! Her parents call it energy. She’s a busy bee. She’s rarely ever still. She climbs everything and talks constantly. She and the Great Danes have an understanding. She’s the boss. She keeps up with her two year old cousin. She is so much like her daddy.

I’ve been remembering a time with my younger son, before the four brain surgeries, when he was in a season of regular seizure activity due to epilepsy, a season he would as soon forget if that were possible. I can look back now and praise God as I’m holding Amelia, his firstborn, for all the things I feared may never happen for him. He is living answered prayer now- his, ours, and maybe even yours.

“I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit.

Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him.

Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong.

And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is.

May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully.

Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.

Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.

Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.”

Ephesians 3:16-21 NLT

https://bible.com/bible/116/eph.3.16-21.NLT

That next to last verse, Ephesians 3:20, was the verse I chose for Jacob’s graduation announcements. As he walked the aisle on graduate recognition Sunday, while others boasted summer plans and college acceptance, he awaited a weeklong monitoring process that would determine the potential for surgery to alleviate his seizures. When the opportunity for testing and potential surgery was first presented to him, he took several days to pray and think over his decision, and rightly so.

Among the eventualities lay everything from not being a candidate after testing to having a successful or an unsuccessful procedure and many other things including further damage from surgery. There were simply no guarantees, only possible outcomes. In working through his decision, he came across a new song entitled “Even If” by Mercy Me.

“I know You’re able and I know You can

Save through the fire with Your mighty hand

But even if You don’t

My hope is You alone

You’ve been faithful,

You’ve been good

All of my days

Jesus, I will cling to You

Come what may”

In confirmation of his decision to go through with the testing, he sang this song in worship shortly before he and I traveled nearly twenty hours for evaluation. The short version reads six years and counting of seizure freedom, drivers license at twenty-one, married at twenty-two, and father to one incredibly energetic little girl who was born in his twenty-fourth year.

As I hold his precious daughter in my arms, as I sit across from his wife who is becoming one of my best friends, God’s Word echoes in my mind. He is able to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. And I wonder why my prayers now seem so small.

Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.

Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.”

Ephesians 3:16-21 NLT

https://bible.com/bible/116/eph.3.16-21.NLT