On Faith

Here is a blog post written by the husband of Anissa Mayhew. Anissa is a thirty-something blogger who suffered a major stroke a couple weeks ago. Her husband has been at her side every day, praying for her and reporting to the world about her progress. He acknowledges his weakness, and thereby finds wellsprings of strength.

Here's a bit of what he said yesterday:

The thing about faith is it’s not about what you want. It’s a confidence that God won’t give you any challenge you can’t handle….you just don’t know what that limit is. ‘Nissa and I talked about this when Peyton was first diagnosed. For the first time, there was a very real possibility of a poor outcome for one of our kids.

There is, however, a certain calm that overtakes you when you take your hands off the wheel of life and let God do the driving.

Six days ago, I prayed for lots of things. It was one of those moments of weakness, when the weight of the world was feeling rather crushing. What I got was this thought: “Touch her where she’s hurt every day for the next 7 days. Things will work out.” Every day, I’ve been coming in and touching the back of her head, her right arm, and her right leg. Every day, I’ve been doing a mental count down, sometimes out loud, drawing weird looks from Natalie, sometimes in my own head.

Tomorrow, Thanksgiving Day, is day 7.

If tomorrow comes and goes and she still hasn’t woken up enough to be considered out of the coma, I’m ok with that, because of the path she’s on. It’s just another day in this whole ordeal.

Understand though, my wife hates being late.

Amazing. Today, as you're giving thanks, I encourage you to also send up prayers of petition for Anissa and her family and others in situations like theirs.