Lazarus. 

Since my sister became ill, I’ve been saying to people “God raised Lazarus from the dead, surely He can raise Katie from her deep sleep”. I just tell myself this over and over when it seems impossible that she’ll be walking around carrying her babies one day. Some days she so still. Then some days, like last night, she opens her eyes when you tell her to, she gets teary when you pray over her, she looks at you, her hand gets more snug around yours. Yesterday was the first time I watched her swallow in almost three weeks and I celebrated like she’d climbed Everest.

I was at the hospital with a friend last night. A non-scary, non-weird pastor friend. Can I just say I’ve never been so thankful to know our pastors. Like to know when they’re praying for Katie or praying over Katie they have a relationship with her and they are not strangers. They’re holding her hands but its not the first time they’ve ever touched. Or prayed together.  They know her family and spend time with their kids and they’re fighting with us in the midst of the biggest battle in our lives, not from a distance but right next to us, where we need them.

Anyway…he prayed over her for a while then started reading her the bible. She perked up. A friend told me yesterday that someone she knows was in a coma and wanted to be read to but couldn’t say that obviously. So he started reading, all over the place really and then landed on Lazarus. Have you read it lately?

John 11New International Version (NIV)
The Death of Lazarus

11 Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 (This Mary, whose brother Lazarus now lay sick, was the same one who poured perfume on the Lord and wiped his feet with her hair.) 3 So the sisters sent word to Jesus, “Lord, the one you love is sick.”

4 When he heard this, Jesus said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it.” 5 Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus. 6 So when he heard that Lazarus was sick, he stayed where he was two more days, 7 and then he said to his disciples, “Let us go back to Judea.”

He later goes back and raises him back to life but I think there a few really important parts before that even happens.

1. “Lord the one you love is sick”. We prayed that last night. “Lord the one you love is sick”. Clearly God knows this. More than anything, probably, it reminded me that God loves my sister. Can I just be honest that sometimes it feels like God fell asleep on the job when this whole thing started. He didn’t. We’ll find out why one day but in the meantime, “the one you love is sick.”
2. This may be for Gods glory. We pray daily for every person who comes in contact with Kate while she’s in the hospital. That God would guide every single movement, every person reading scans, every person administering meds, all of them. When Katie wakes up we want people all over that hospital (and beyond!) talking about the miracle and remember us all in her room begging God on her behalf.
3. This is the hardest one. Jesus and I don’t share the same urgency. He is secure in his ability to heal and so he finished what he needed to first; he waited two days before starting on his journey to Lazarus.  I want Katie healed and I want her healed yesterday. Three weeks ago. I have literally asked God to push the clocks back to family vacation and write another ending. Jesus waited a few days before the trek to heal Lazarus. He has his own timing. I’ve gotta trust that. He still wept over Lazarus, he still wasn’t happy that people were mourning, but it became worth it when Lazarus woke up. I know Katie is worth the wait.

I hope this encourages someone today. Something my husband has been praying about for a while worked out, a different person within a few degrees of separation was instantaneously healed to doctors’ complete shock. Things have worked out in the midst of Katie being in a coma. It has been a weird feeling for me. God somehow working something else out for good while I was desperate to see Katie awake. He’s good like that though, He’s working out crazy details surrounding Katie and her sweet family while we wait for her to heal. He’s the King of multi-tasking while he’s still the King of Kings.

If you haven’t, please consider donating to help with costs as Kate is sleeping.

Here’s one of my favorite childhood pictures. Kate and I about the ages of our kids currently.