I Couldn't Believe...

She stood nervously in front of us,
determined to get through her testimony.

She spoke with love and gratitude as she shared
how God had healed her ear
and that she could hear much better now.

The church had fasted and prayed for
several weeks,
seeking God and asking Him to change our hearts.

At a corporate meeting where several churches came together
to worship after the fast, her husband came up to her at the altar
and said, "I want to pray for your ear."

He did and God healed her.

She said, "Now I can hear the children
laughing when they are playing in another room."

It makes me weep all over again
just typing those words.

And a little later, she said,
"I couldn't believe what I was missing."

I had gotten pretty sick at that same church gathering
and had left God's party early.

But He made it up to me,
for as I listened to this young woman,
it was as if God had healed my ear
and I could hear my children laughing
in another room for the first time in my life.

Isn't this what He does?

He healed the lame man and he went walking
and leaping and praising God.
He couldn't believe what he had been missing.

God takes the bitter heart and blows His lovely breath
on it, and it becomes soft and sweet,
and that heart can't believe what it has been missing.

He takes the forsaken one,
whose father or mother or spouse has left it
in one way or another,
and He picks them up and holds them to His cheek
and says, "I am your Father, and Mother, and Spouse.
I'm in your corner against the cruelties of life."

And that sought-out-one learns
to relax and trust and be loved
and they can't believe what they have been missing.
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"Then the eyes of the blind will be opened,
And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.
Then the lame will leap like a deer,
And the tongue of the dumb shall sing.
For waters shall burst forth in the wilderness,
And streams in the desert.
The parched ground shall become a pool,
And the thirsty land springs of water."
(Isaiah 35:5-7b)