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Devotion What If Do you ever wonder to yourself "What if my child could _____"? As the parent of a severely disabled child I have often thought about it. My blank line would contain the word talk. I know that four-year-old girls talk incessantly, and I imagine my daughter would do the same, if she could talk. My daughter can make a few odd sounds that I would recognize as "mom, dad, go, and cold," but most of the time her voice is silent. I've often prayed that God would teach her how to use her voice. And sometimes, like now, I can hear her in her bedroom practicing. The sounds don't make any sense but as a mother I know what she is saying. "Mommy, I know you're up. Can't I get up too?" Now she's whining her words, "Please! I've been awake since 4 AM. I'm going to go to sleep if you don't get me up." I've marveled at the times when my daughter has actually said things that I can clearly understand. We'll be riding in the car and suddenly I'll be shocked out of silence with, "Wherewegoing?" All one word, mostly inflection, but clearly intelligible. On drippy-nose days when my daughter has a sore throat she speaks more clearly and more often than she does at any other time. Happily the words fly out of her mouth. She doesn't speak in sentences like a child who's been talking all their life, but words are words. And although she is ill, I love those days. Do you ever wonder what the Lord would say about us talking to him? We give excuses about not knowing what to say or how and when to say it. But like me waiting for my daughter to say something, I'm sure he's waiting for us in a similar fashion. All we have to do is open our mouth and breathe the words out. Sounds easy, but is it? I think for most of us it isn't. Like my daughter and her sore throat, it's often illness and pain that really makes our prayers more concise and clear. It's what we feel that helps us to say so much more to the Lord than we have in the past. I think the Lord would encourage us to use those painful times to practice talking to Him. A strange thing happens to my daughter when the sore throat goes away, she forgets how to talk. Even though she practices the words disappear. One of these days I expect she'll feel her throat without it being sore, and words such as I've never heard will come out of her mouth. I'm sure the same goes for us. We don't have to stop talking to the Lord when our pain is gone. But sometimes we forget, or get discouraged because we think our words don't make sense. But the Lord always knows what we are talking about. And like my daughter, who's trying to tell me in not one intelligible word that she's ready to get up, God is a Father who understands our words. And if we practice enough I'm sure that someday we'll feel our throat well enough to speak to the Lord at any time, not only when we are in pain. Psalms 51:15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. Michelle Detwiler lives with her family in rural Washington State. She is the mother of two sons, and a daughter. Although she was trained as a medical assistant, and then worked in electronics for ten years, her heart has always been to work with disabled children. After her younger son was diagnosed with a rare genetic liver disorder in 1984, she became involved in caring for other medically fragile infants and young children. The year 1995 brought a special gift to the household and in 1998 they saw the completion of the adoption of their medically fragile daughter. The Detwiler's continue to provide foster care for medically fragile infants. They take one baby at a time, caring for, praying for, and feeling totally blessed by the Lord as they provide His love to these special little children. |
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