Meditation Monday: The Peculiar Timing of Answered Prayers

Okay, this is such an exciting post to write that I've set aside another exciting post I started yesterday! My understanding of the Orthodox Faith is that there are no coincidences in life: God foresees everything and though we do not know to pray for something specific, He knows that the prayer is going to be said - and that prayer counts even for things that have happened in our past. But because God does not have a past, nor a future, He just IS, then all prayers are heard at the right time, no matter when we actually said them. I hope I haven't muddled this all up and confused the matter - because the concept is integral to this story today.

March was a  HUGE push for me as I worked to achieve a very big goal with my Young Living business and though I did not meet the goal, I know that I will soon and that good things are happening still. But as a result of the work involved, I took time away at the beginning of April - and even just this morning was struggling to get back in the game. Not good when we're already at April 6th! 

Then I saw a graphic that said: 

Dear God,

Please wrap your arms around those who are hurting today, and let them feel how much You love them...

I do not have permission from Addictstoday.com, from whence the graphic came, so I am not reposting the actual picture here, but I was just about to repost it to my own FaceBook time line when I got a phone call. It was a close friend. The same woman whose odd twists of luck got what she deserved in my Christmas post.  

So at risk of making this a somewhat long post, I have to give a bit of background to help understand why all this is a big deal - AND to fully explain why this belongs in Meditation Monday. My friend has been battling bulging discs in her back for about a year now. Longer, really, but truly trying to get out of constant and continual pain for a year at least. She tried pharmaceuticals, they didn't work, they have done test after test and not been able to figure out why she was in so much pain. After much effort they determined that she has bulging discs in her back. By this point, she had picked up a new job (yay!) but was also in a wheelchair for the longer traveling distances needed to get to and from the new job and to travel around the larger campus of her workplace in a timely manner.

Within her first week on the job, she was maneuvering this new wheelchair to get into a bathroom and cut a huge chunk out of her leg on the door as it slammed closed on her. (Boo!) Long and the short of it is that six months later, she has gone to doctor after doctor and specialist upon specialist to try to get it to heal well, on top of her physical therapy work for her back. 

She has had so many problems with the medical community that she also has been using my essential oils each day for trying to fix her back, lose weight and get her leg healed. The oils were successful in many ways, but not as successful as I really thought they would be - and I couldn't figure out why! It did not help matters that I live in Virginia and she lives across the country! She would update me almost weekly and often as not was sobbing on the phone from the pain the gash in her leg was still in so. Much. Pain.

Back to the news she was calling with today: She went to the doctor last week to check back in and give him an update on all that the specialists and referrals had (not) done for her. 

This doctor is her primary doctor, and has been for 25 years. After talking to her, and looking carefully at all the medicines she had been told to take to heal, he took her from more than 35 prescription pills a day to half of one. He told her to go to natural sources and take Vitamins C and D, to add Zinc to her daily routine, and to increase how much protein she is getting. He also allowed her to continue using the essential oils. That was last Thursday.

She slept from Friday (she said) right on through to Sunday afternoon. Saturday was her birthday - I called her and can say she was so tired I didn't bother to try to wish her a happy one! I told her I'd call later and go get some rest. 

By the time she got up this morning, she had NO swelling in her legs, NO pain left in her legs, had not taken even one of the pain pills he allowed her to keep last Thursday, and she had dropped 11 pounds of water weight. 

The last bit is significant because she has been working hard to lose weight by using the Slique Complete program through Young Living. Her review has not come out on that yet but up to now it has been helping her maintain the weight she had lost but it seemed like she had plateaued overall. 

What all this means though - and what is so totally significant to me today - is that God is still listening. He is still moving mountains. He is still making it happen even when my prayers come after the fact on my time line, they have been said at the right time. And I am grateful. And I will continue to work on praying to bless others as I move from day to day because in that effort, I too am blessed. 

Thanks for sticking with me on this one - It is a little long, and a little rambling because I can't give up my entire Slique review yet, but I was blessed this morning by the good news that my friend called to give me.