I Shall Not Want

As a new Christian, I struggled trusting and fully surrendering to God. My earthly father never demonstrated any of God’s loving, nurturing attributes. My earthly father provided for the physical needs of his family, but that was it. It was difficult not to project my father’s lack onto my heavenly Father. I can see in hindsight that my walk with the Lord has been to teach me to trust Him, to surrender to Him and to teach me to go to Him in prayer for every need. Here are a few of the disappointments with their instructive and redeeming outcomes.

At age two, my son was diagnosed with autism. At age seven, I enrolled him in a Christian school with no need for special education support. God miraculously transformed him.

As an infant, my son developed food allergies, especially milk. At four, he came to me and emphatically asked me to lay hands on him and to pray he could consume dairy products. After that prayer, he immediately went to the refrigerator to get yogurt. He declared he was healed and has been eating dairy ever since. Because of this experience, John prays with great faith that God will hear and answer his prayers whether it is for him or others.

When my son was three, my husband died. I can say with David, I have been young and now am old; Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants begging bread. Psalm 37:25

When John was seven, he was diagnosed with neurofibromatosis (NF), which is a genetic condition that can cause many different problems and is often progressive and can develop issues at any age. Some of these can be deafness, blindness, various cancers, tumors and nodules all over the body to name a few. He was given a baseline MRI which the doctor said indicated he had a small tumor in his motor ganglion in his brain. He said it was inoperable and had no treatment. He assured me that at some point it would grow and take his life. John would not live to see age 18. It was a devastating diagnosis. I remember praying, “But God, he is my son, my only ….” At that point I sheepishly realized that God could relate.  I fervently prayed for him until God answered and assured me that He would only let the disease go so far and that God would not allow it to disable John.  I was able to surrender this to God and believe for His provision. That was 40 years ago, and God has stayed true to his word. The next year when it was time for his checkup, I was referred to an NF clinic because the previous doctor had retired. I took his MRI films from the year before. These specialists reviewed them and assured me that the tumor was a misdiagnosis, and there was nothing life threatening.  If I had not prayed, heard God’s answer and surrendered it, I could have allowed this misdiagnosis to torment me for a year until I heard the truth.

Early in my pregnancy, I started declaring this verse for my baby: Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above(James 1:17a). When we found out our baby was a boy, my husband wanted him to have his first name. When I suggested John for his middle name, my husband agreed. John means God’s gracious gift.  We called him by his initials A.J. When he turned six, A.J. decided he did not like being called by his initials because it was not a real name. When I went through the list of his given names and their nicknames, he decided to be called John. Even going through these trials, John has been a good, perfect and gracious gift from God. My son chose to be called John, which is a constant reminder.