“Are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray. Are any of you happy? You should sing praises. Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord. Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well. And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven.” -James 5:13-15 We have a tradition in our home, not really sure how it started, but at every kid’s birthday Jen and I pray with all our friends and family together for our children. We look at their close friends and family as their “village” for lack of better words. We know that these kids and parents will be a part of their lives for years to come and we want to invite them all into our journey of parenting and our kids journey of becoming the young men and women God created them to be. This is a special moment that we all look forward to. We don’t try and over-spiritualize it, but it is important to us and to them. Sometimes we talk about what we want to pray for before hand. Sometimes we don’t. We know our kids pretty well and have some good intuition on what God is planning for them – nothing really detailed, just general ideas. Here’s what I prayed for Maggie’s four-year-old birthday on August 13th, 2014: God, we just thank you for little Maggie. For the gift that she is to our family and to the special little girl that she is, and the big heart that you’ve put in her, and the big mouth that you’ve given her (my lame attempt at humor). We just pray that you would use what you’ve given to her for your glory. And we pray that you would watch over her as she grows up and protect her. Surround her with friends like these who love her and care about her, and people who would speak into her life, and just really try and help her become the woman that you’ve created her to be. We thank you so much for her tonight and we thank you for all these friends and family who can come and celebrate and party with us. And thank you for giving us a reason to party tonight and that would be Maggie Ruth McLean. And everybody said… Amen! This day when I prayed for Maggie, I just thought through how wonderful she is, how she is very different from our other three kids. She’s so strong and independent. She’s fierce! I really did (and do) believe that God has big plans for her. I had no idea that day, our prayer would mean so much; would be so prophetic. We had no idea that in just a matter of days she would be on life support, on a helicopter to Loma Linda Children’s Hospital. We had no idea that in just a few days we wouldn’t have the strength to pray and would be surrounded by friends and family who prayed for us and with us unceasingly. We had no idea that her story would grow from couple social media updates to thousands of people following her story, praying for her and surrounding our family with their support. One of the things we’re learning through this journey is the power of prayer and watching things we say we believe, come to life. It’s one thing to pray and ask God to use our daughter for his glory. It’s a whole ‘nother thing to see those words come to life and walk that journey. We believe that God, in his divine and mysterious sovereignty chose to allow this trial so that many would be drawn to him (including us). For some reason he knew that our family, our church family and our community would see us through (no matter what the outcome). I can’t express more clearly how amazing it has been to be on the receiving end of this journey. No doubt is has been and continues to be hard – we are SO BLESSED! We are so encouraged to see Maggie’s story touching so many lives. To watch our church rise up and pray and give and love on us and others and one another. To see people who wouldn’t call themselves “religious” (which we don’t either), send us messages of support and encouragement. To hear stories of parents loving on their kids more and wanting to be better parents - to not take any moment for granted. He has not only answered our prayers to save Maggie’s life and continue to heal her. He’s answered our prayer for her that we prayed before any of this even began. We’re looking forward to continuing to share Maggie’s story and the stories that are being told because of her and we know that through these stories God is using a little four-year old to reveal himself to the world. We are amazed. #prayformaggieruth PS - you can read this on our site and share with those who arent on social media at mclean6.net/maggie-update-maggies-birthday-prayer/
Posted on: Mon, 22 Sep 2014 05:38:34 +0000
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