Learning to Pray Ceaselessly

eric — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 07:30:29 -0500

For hundreds of years, Christians have quietly repeated fragments of Scripture or short prayers throughout the day to remain present to God. As the Russian Christian writer Anthony Bloom put it, “God is never absent . . . We complain that He does not make Himself present to us for the few minutes we reserve for Him, but what about the twenty-three-and-a-half hours during which God may be knocking at our door and we answer ‘I am busy, I am sorry’ or when we do not answer at all because we do not hear the knock . . . we are a great deal more absent than He ever is.” Having a simple refrain to call upon during the day helps us maintain connection to Christ and tunes the heart to hear him knocking at its door.

In the Crowded Mind: Learning to Pray Without Ceasing By Cameron Lawrence

From the article at InTouch.org

Medical Miracles in Our Modern Age

eric — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 11:20:46 -0600

I'm not sure what it is about us. Why do we continue to think that God doesn't work miracles? (I'm mainly speaking of medical miracles, here.) I guess we are all somewhat like the Disciple Thomas as we have to see it to believe it. Such is the case with our five year old son and his scoliosis.

My wife first noticed that his left shoulder dropped a bit when he was one year old (this explained the difficulty in keeping up both overall straps). We pushed to have our pediatrician look at his spine and recommend someone to speak with. Fast forward to 2006 and we have an x-ray with a 13 degree top curve and a five degree lumbar curve (basically his spine had a backwards 'S' shape). Now, they didn't report on the 13 degree top curve so when we had another x-ray this past July, it was alarming to hear about the "change." It wasn't a change as much as a lack of reporting everything they found the previous year, thus our concern that it was getting worse.

We spoke with a friend that is an orthopedic surgeon and he recommended meeting with the scoliosis specialists at the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital. We were finally able to get all of the details sorted out with them and get an appointment. We went in this last week to see them.

What we found out surprised us. Then it surprised us that we were surprised (if that makes sense). A lot of people have been praying for our son for healing, guidance, and a good report. Well, we received all three.

The specialists checked him out and did some x-rays. As of July of this year, he still had a crooked spine. Now scoliosis isn't something you out grow as my wife still has it. It isn't as common in boys and it is also rare to notice it this much before adolesence. It's usually treatable, but not curable. Many people have a much more severe case, but his case was significant enough for us to get an appointment.

After speaking with the nurse practitioner, whom we loved, she said he looks very straight, but wanted to take some x-rays just to get a better look. Their x-rays showed his spine had completely straightened out!

The doctor came in and told us, "He looks straight as a string." They tried to explain away the two years of x-rays by stating that maybe the radiologist wasn't paying attention and he wasn't standing straight when they took those x-rays. Now, for those of you that have children and/or work with children you know how difficult it is to get a child to stand still, much less to stand crooked at the exact same degrees two years in a row. That explanation just didn't make any sense.

When you compare the sets of x-rays, some would think it was two different children. The only explanation is that God actually did heal him. My father-in-law said he wondered if that was why our son was having so many growth spurts this past summer. Maybe God was using those to straighten out his back.

Whatever the method He used, all we know is that the God that created us, sent His Son, Jesus Christ to die for our unworthy souls, is still in the business of healing, even in our modern age.