I spent some time on my knees today, literally. It wasn’t planned, but while Samantha was having her EEG done, I wanted to stay close so I could keep an eye on her and comfort her if she got upset. After a while, standing by her crib started to wear on my feet, so I dragged over a padded chair next to her crib and knelt on it. What is it about that posture that just invokes prayer?

I find myself begging God to heal her one minute, and then feeling guilty the next for asking for such a miracle. As I’ve said before, why should we be spared the pain of all of these things? I know we are undeserving. Then again, so is every human being. It is so hard to be a Christian today. Between the world telling us that we believe in a fairy tale and then the fact that there are thousands of different interpretations of scripture out there, it’s hard to know what to pray for or even how to pray. One writer will tell you to pray for the miracle and expect it. Another will remind you to pray for God’s will to be done. Some will try to tell you that if you aren’t willing to believe God can do something, it won’t happen. Still others will say that God doesn’t do miracles today like He did in the Bible times. And when I try to pray for Samantha, my thoughts often get cluttered with all of this and a million other second-guesses I have created for myself.

The truth is, I know God is working/has worked/will work a miracle in Samantha. We see it already. We see it in how she was spared – if she had been at home when she stopped breathing, she would have died. I’m certain of it. We see it in the relationships that have been repaired, restored, or at the very least, thawed. Some were relationships that we thought were impossible to repair. Yet the very people we believed could no longer be part of our lives are praying for us and have reached out to us. That is a miracle.

I also know there are future miracles already being worked out – the hard part is not knowing what they are. Samantha’s miracles may include total recovery. Or it may be that her disabilities will point the way to Christ, for us and for everyone around her. Or perhaps even her healing will be total in terms of her going to heaven. We know eventually that will take place, but when is as uncertain as anything else.

I have to admit, a part of me was a bit disappointed that the kooks were wrong about today being the end of the world. It would have been nice to be done with the pain of this life and join in the biggest celebration of all. But God’s timing is perfect. He has a plan for this world and a plan for little Samantha. Not in the sense of needing to guess exactly what God wants us to do each day, but in the way he continues to mold her as His creation. Until I typed that, I didn’t realize that’s what He is doing. He is still working in her, recreating her, just as He is still recreating you and me. That work isn’t done until we leave this life. I don’t think I’ve been paying attention to that with Samantha. Instead I’ve been wallowing in the thought that God created her the way she was born, and then this disease destroyed the creation He made. While that may be true, God did not just put Samantha together and walk away. He has been with her at each moment, and whatever becomes of her brain, her abilities, her life – it is ALL in His hands.