Rosa

We visited a woman named Rosa the other day.  She was a very small woman.  Her dress was modest, and her voice was timid.
 
But her prayers were not.
 
The woman prays with a vengeance.  She knows God will heal her swollen, injured ankle.  She proclaims healing over herself in Jesus’ Name.  Again and again and again.  I think I would have stopped after a few times.  But she believes with everything in her that God is with her and that He will heal her.
 
We prayed for her too.  We prayed with passion, conviction, tears.  We asked God to bring healing.  We asked for a miracle.  We knew He was big enough, strong enough, powerful enough.  We had faith.  We knew God could heal Rosa.
 
But He didn’t.  We left, not faithless, but disappointed and full of questions nonetheless.
 
How do we deal with those kinds of things?  With things requested in faith, but not received?  At what point should we transition from pleas for merciful healing to confident proclamations of, ‘Get up and walk’?  And when that time does come, how do we handle that not happening?
 
Our team talked about this for awhile that night.  It was a great discussion, but it was another one of those where we didn’t land anywhere.  And you can’t, really.  Not with those kinds of questions.  Our desires and expectations don’t necessarily reflect His.  What can you do, then, except to accept that some things are just beyond our knowledge and understanding, trusting that… well, He knows?
 
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.  For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.  Isaiah 55:8-9