What does one do when their three year old daughter, who often seems to express a more intimate relationship with the Lord than anyone you know, is bleeding from a rash that has taken over her bottom and is literally filling her underwear with blood? I mean, yes...it occurs to me to take her to the doctor and there is an appointment scheduled for the next day. But still, I want her to know Jesus to be her primary pediatrician. I want her to know that Jesus wants to heal her and make her feel good. That he cares about her. So before the dr...what does one do? Pray, right? Lay hands on her and declare healing over her body.
I became particularly conscious of the fact that as I “declared healing” over her body and spoke to the rash and “commanded it to dry up and stop bleeding/hurting” that Keziah was listening to my prayers and receiving them with faith. That while others from my “circle” are familiar with these prayers and words and even say them out of habit, Keziah was hearing them from her father who does not lie to her and who she trusts and believes. Having asked in an authoritative tone for there to be no symptoms by morning of any rash whatsoever, she believed absolutely that by morning she would be healed. She climbed into bed that night and thanked me for praying and reminded me of what I prayed/declared. “When I wake up, my bottom will be all better cause of Jesus, right daddy?”
I went to bed thinking that if I were God, there is no way I would be able resist the beauty of the faith embedded in my little girl's heart. Certainly she would be healed or at least feeling better the next day...despite my own shortcomings, failures, and lack of faith. To my shame, I don't know if I really expected the entire rash to be gone...but certainly better than it was that night as I carefully laid her into her bed because it hurt her just to move.
In fact, I slept in the next morning and didn't even remember the incident. I got in the shower and went through my daily routine. Later that morning, Janelle pulled me aside to tell me what happened. My wife walked into Keziah's room that morning to get her up and give her breakfast. What she found, broke my heart. Keziah was standing at the foot of her bed with her underwear around her ankles. “Mommy,” she said, “why didn't Jesus heal me?” Makes me cry just to write it.
So what's the answer. I refuse to believe it was some lack of faith on my daughter's part. I mean, how many times have you been prayed for or prayed yourself for healing from some ailment but didn't even remember the next morning when the same symptoms were still there – that runny nose or sour stomach or throbbing headache – that though you prayed, you were not healed. No, like me, chances are you popped a pill and forgot you even prayed that prayer. Underneath, somewhere in a dark subconscious place where you aren't willing to even hear your thoughts, there is this very subtle voice that whispers – “Well, I gave Jesus his chance like I'm supposed to and got the results I expected to get. Must not have been his will, I still love him but time to get some real results from the source I KNOW will heal. Pass the meds please.”
But my two and three year olds speak from that subconscious place all the time – and their subconscious place isn't nearly as dark as mine. They haven't learned yet to not want to hear their own thoughts or to avoid their real feelings. They are not ashamed of or afraid of what might come out of them. They simply are – period.
What did Keziah's subconscious place say? “Mommy, why didn't Jesus heal me?” I mean, isn't that the real question? She wasn't asking in a jaded or irritated way. It was an honest, guileless question. With joy and expectation she couldn't wait to drop her panties and see the evidence of God's love for her. So why didn't he? I can hear the question ringing in my ears and I want to know the answer, I really do. I wanna protect her from the feelings of rejection or disappointment that might attack her little heart. I wanna step in and interfere with the theology that I am suddenly aware is being formed within my three year old daughter's heart – that Jesus DID miracles, and LOVED people enough to intimately interact with their issues and problems, that he USED TO BE powerful when he was on the earth as a man and someday will be again...but in the mean time we will talk about Him as if he DOES miracles, and LOVES people, and IS intimate and powerful. And every now and then will see some small example of it that will convince us that the stories we read about WERE true.
Sure, I have come up with little reasons that help me rationalize the disappointment I feel when my prayers are not answered, the sick are not healed, the dead stay dead. When the babies miscarry, the cancer comes back, the ministry falls apart, the friends abandon, the father betrays, the breakthrough doesn't come, there is not financial security...again. I tell myself that I must not have been praying in accordance with His will, or that it was more about the journey and the process than the destination, perhaps it's my immaturity or lack of faith or an unspoken sin issue. Maybe it's the spiritual atmosphere over the region, curses or jealousy being directed towards me, the judgements of friends and enemies. None of these alibis put my heart to ease. The closest solution to the divide between what I believe about God and what I experience comes from the deep, dark, subconscious place inside of me that eeks out...“It's cause I suck!”
Well that exposes some things, doesn't it? It should suffice to say that none of these answers are gonna make any sense to my daughter who just wants to know why Jesus didn't heal her bottom. And the growing ache inside of myself warns me that if something doesn't change, she will come to the same conclusion as her broken father...that she sucks. I cannot bear that I would pass that on to her. She is not the problem. But what is? It's easy to come to the conclusion that the one doing the praying/declaring – ME – is the problem but even my own theology takes into account that God is bigger than my crap. God knows my heart and sees that I want him. That combined with my daughter's innocent and significant faith ought to be enough, right? Even my wife was there and agreeing and declaring. And she is one of the most pure people I know so even if I am totally a waste of space, my wife certainly has me covered.
I am aware that however I choose to answer Keziah will shape how she sees the Lord for a significant part of her life. How I respond to her still being sick and bleeding even though we agreed as a family for her healing is no small matter. She will believe what I tell her and will repeat it to those she knows. This is a defining moment for her. Why did Jesus not heal her? Right or wrong, this is what I did. I tried to be honest with her and told her that I didn't know but that the bible talks about a persistent woman in the bible. I asked her if she knew what that meant and she rolled her eyes at me in a way that suggested I was insulting her intelligence and said, “yes, daddy. It means she lied.” “Not really,” I explained. I told her that the woman wanted something and wouldn't give up or stop asking and so that's what we would do. We would keep asking for her bottom to be healed. Lame, perhaps, but I didn't have time to process through everything and give my gut answer. Which was a good thing cause at that time, it would have been only to tell her that her daddy sucks. My Keziah is discerning and looked into my eyes in a way that communicated my answer was not good enough but that she would accept it for now cause she could see that I at least honestly believed it.
The rash is still not gone.
This conversation will be had again, I know this for certain. Any day now she will ask me why Jesus didn't heal her bottom and when she does, I think I will tell her some form of this...
When I remove the darkness from my deep, subconscious place, I hear myself ask this question. Do I know Jesus? I'm fairly certain that I do not. Not for real. Not the way I can know Him. It's a question that doesn't come with anger or self hatred or condemnation. It breaks me and makes me cry. It's a relief. It's a relief to know that the answer is not that I suck. It's a relief to know that He is not as mean and severe and begrudging and disappointed as I have painted him to be in my own heart. It gives me freedom and a desire to know him more – the right way, the way he can be known. To love him. Sure, it smarts a bit to hear myself say these things. What will the world think when they find out that Jonathan doesn't know Jesus and believes he sucks? But when I consider the posture of the Lord's heart as I write this and I fix my gaze on his face, I see that he is not upset with me. He is weeping too. Cause he so badly wants me to know him as he really is – not as I'm afraid he is. He so badly wants to breathe life over the dead and broken parts of my heart. He wants to heal Keziah's body. The problem is that I gotta let him. I gotta get to know him. It's so easy to serve, so much safer. But it's right to love.
I'm not sure what Keziah will think or how she will process through all that. I'll obviously have to re-word it so she can understand, but I pray that it provokes a hunger within her to know him as he is. And that she will be graced with the humility to identify when she is responding to a harsh God she has created through her life experiences, rather than a loving God who has carefully formed her life experiences to reveal his true nature.
It's so easy to serve, so much safer. But it's right to love.
