Believing God for More

ADOPTION/FOSTER CARE SUPPORT GROUP

June 6, 2010

The Power of a Praying Parent

Keep the details of your child’s life covered in prayer. It is the power of God that penetrates a child’s life when a parent prays. - Stormie Omartian

There’s Joy in Believing – May the God of your hope so fill you with all joy and peace in believing that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound and be overflowing with hope. Romans 15:13

When joy and peace seem to be gone – check your believing – usually it is gone also. - Joyce Meyer

BELIEVING GOD FOR MORE

When we were expecting Hannah, I experienced a complication at 30 weeks that risked both Hannah’s and my life. I was able to carry Hannah for another 6 weeks. I was in and out of the hospital. When I was home, I was on bed rest. During those 6 weeks many tests were ordered and every test came back the same. Our daughter was unresponsive in utero and would be born with many disabilities. It was decided that a team from Children’s Hospital should be at there for her birth and ready to transport her immediately after she was born. During that time I chose to “believe God for more”. While I didn’t argue with what they said, in my heart I chose to “believe God for more”.

Delivery day came sooner than we anticipated and the staff from Children’s was called to attend.Hannah was born with an apgar of 1 and only had an apgar of 4 at 5 minutes. She needed a lot of help the first hour of her life. Praise God for trained medical staff who deligently worked to get her to breathe. After a couple of hours the staff from Children’s Hospital decided that Hannah could stay with me at the hospital. They had stabilized her and she was out of danger.

The next day the High Risk OB that had been caring for me those last 6 weeks stood in my room shaking his head. He said “Every test we did showed that your little girl would be born with multiple disabilities. Medically she shouldn’t be presenting as she is right now”. Only God!

We took Hannah home 4 days later weighing a whooping 4 lbs. She wore preemie and newborn clothes until she was 9 months old. She didn’t walk until she was a year and a half. She was a sick little baby the first 2 years of her life. So when I began telling our pediatrician that Hannah didn’t seem to hear me – he attributed it to her preemie status and said to give her more time. Being the persistent mom that I am I made an appointment with an ENT. He did an examination and then moved behind me and proceeded to drop a heavy book on the floor. It scared me to death and Hannah didn’t even flinch – she didn’t even know. After more tests the ENT told us that Hannah was profoundly deaf in both ears and that we should look into the home down the street from the hospital for kids that are profoundly deaf (this was a live-in home). I said “No Way”. At that moment I chose to “believe God for more”. I chose to believe that God would do a miracle in Hannah’s life. We took Hannah to our pastor at the end of the church service the next week and asked him to anoint her with oil and pray for her. He called the elders to pray with him. The next week during his sermon he stopped right in the middle of his sermon and said “Sister Stewart, you don’t stop praying for Hannah because God is going to heal her”.

Hannah was fitted for hearing aids and began taking speech and sign language. At this time she was 2 years old. We moved to Colorado shortly before Hannah turned 3. She began a pre-school in the district that was especially for kids that were hearing impaired. She learned many skills on how to be successful in the classroom setting. Since Hannah was significantly behind in her speech skills we decided to hold Hannah back 1 year from starting kindergarten. When she entered kindergarten she too made her own choice. She no longer wanted to wear hearing aids and she no longer wanted to sign. She purposefully left her hearing aids at the public library and they were never found again. The cost of a hearing aid is pretty high so you can imagine that Jeff and I were not happy about the sudden loss of her hearing aid and her teacher felt awful.

During this time she was seeing an ENT in Fort Collins and had regained enough hearing in her right ear that she could function without an aid in her left ear. The doctor asked me what I attributed Hannah’s hearing improvement to because this type of hearing loss does not improve on its own. I told him I believe that God was healing her. He just smiled at me!

We were told:

Hannah would not be a good reader, she would never play an instrument, she would struggle in school because of her disability – I chose to “believe God for more”.

Through the years Hannah learned to advocate for herself. She knew exactly where she needed to sit in the class so that she could hear and most of her teachers never knew that Hannah had a hearing impairment. Hannah asked to quit the yearly staffings that were required by the school district when she was in middle school.

God did work a miracle in Hannah’s life. She recently graduated from UNC with high honors and received her teaching degree. She plays the violin beautifully.

This past weekend she married a wonderful young man named Nathan. Hannah asked the pastor if she and her attendants could be on his left side instead of the right so that she didn’t miss anything he said.

“Believing God for More” in Hannah’s life has helped me to believe God for more in all of my children’s lives. Nothing is impossible with Him!! We need to pray and then move forward in ways that help our children. We may not see healing right away. Keep “Believing God for More” even when you can’t physically see it.

Sometimes we don’t know how to pray. For me, sometimes I am so frustrated that I don’t want to pray – that is when I need to pray the most!!! Using a written prayer and the word of God can help me get on the right track. Then I am able to add to that prayer specifics needs that need to be covered. I am often the one who needs an attitude adjustment.

Don’t let any disappointment over unanswered prayer cause you to stop praying. Make a decision to “believe God for More” in your situation even when you don’t see it happening.

Faith is not just something you have. Faith is something you do!!!!

Show me your faith without works, and I will show you faith from my works. James 2:18

What are you “Believing God for More” in your life?