Prodigal: AhChoo, AhChoo!
Me: God Bless you! Are you sick Prodigal?
Prodigal: Yes, I am sick. I do not feel well at all!
Prodigal: I am sorry! Just lay down and I will tell you of a story of a woman when she had a long term illness.
Catherine Marshall in her book Beyond Our Selves talks about the Prayer of Relinquishment.
I got my first glimpse of it in the fall of 1943. The illness that I have mentioned before in these pages had kept me in bed for many months. A bevy of specialists seemed unable to help. Persistent prayer, using all the faith I could muster, had resulted in –nothing.
One afternoon a pamphlet was put in my hand. It was the story of a missionary who had been an invalid for eight years. Constantly she had prayed that God would make her well, so that she might do His work. Finally, worn out with futile petition, she prayed, “All right. I give up. If you want me to be an invalid for the rest of my days, that is Your business. Anyway, I have discovered that I want You even more than I want health. You decide” The pamphlet said that within two weeks the woman was out of bed, completely well.
This made no sense to me. It seemed too pat. Yet I could not forget the story. On the morning of September fourteenth (how can I ever forget the date?) I came to the same point of abject acceptance. “I’m tired of asking” was the burden of my prayer. “I’m beaten, finished. God, You decide what you want for me for the rest of my life…” Tears flowed. I had no faith as I understood faith. I expected nothing. The gift of my sick self was made with no terrace of graciousness.
The result was as if windows had opened in heaven; as if some dynamo of heavenly power had begun flowing, flowing into me. From that moment my recovery began.
You have been struggling so much. Trying to hide the struggling from others. You cry out to God. You don’t understand. You have tried this and that and God seems to be silent. You feeling like breaking. You are breaking.
Maybe that is the point. Maybe it is time to just relinquish it all. I know it is very scary. You have been asking why? Maybe it is time that you relinquish it all to God. I know how hard it is. I had too. I don’t regret it at all. I was given a peace beyond understanding and then God really started using me.
Isaiah 55:8-11
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. “For as the rain and snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but I shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.
Jennifer Van Allen,
www.theprodigalpig.com
www.faithincounseling.org
