Well, friends and family, last Friday the 19th, we closed a significant chapter in our lives. River’s six week-recovery post-surgery is over and there are no longer any concerns regarding brain fluid leaking, pseudo meningoceles forming, or infections developing. We met with his neurosurgeon and she wants to do one final MRI to check for hydrocephalus (the fluid buildup he was at risk of since birth due to presence of meningocele) in a few months, but she said if he didn’t develop it throughout these past six weeks of recovery, we are likely in the clear….we don’t even have to check his head circumference weekly anymore. If/when this last MRI is clear, we are done with neurosurgery completely.

It’s hard to believe and I am having trouble even finding words for what this signifies, how huge this is. In the appointment with the neurosurgeon, I kept digging for more things to be concerned about but coming up with nothing. The doctor even joked, “it’s just brain surgery.” Like, exactly!! It makes no sense! And how has it become this simple after how complex and uncertain and scary it was up to this point?

I don’t understand how God works and why things happen the way they do. Why He answers some prayer requests and not others. Why some people suffer repeatedly and why some seem to have the blessings just flowing. It’s not like I believe the more faith you have, the better your circumstances will be. In fact, if you were to read my written out prayers in anticipation of all the high-stakes tests we had, my prayers focused just as much on preparing me for hard news as it did on asking for good news. For none of us know how it will all go down when we are in a storm (or ever, for that matter), let alone why it does. What I do know is that I learned a lot about myself and my prayer process along this journey. Prayer can be challenging, can’t it? But I’ve had to rely on prayer so much throughout this past year and doing so has shown me and taught me more than I ever thought possible and it has forever changed me.

For those who are interested, here is what I learned about my process:

Be BOLD in what you ask the Lord. How much more will you be able to accept the specifics of what you are handed in life if you KNOW that you LEFT THE SPECIFICS AT HIS FEET. And then…..LEAVE THEM THERE. Leave the specifics to Him. Don’t fret over them. Do your part in being responsible of course…..you have to study for the test, not just pray for success on the test. But I recently read: “There isn’t enough room in your mind for both worry and faith. You must choose which one will live there.” Choose faith! Bring up every detail to the Lord, don’t just pray generally for help and protection. But then let it go!! Move on with your day using space in your brain that you just purged at the Lord’s feet to be a light to others and love on others. Don’t let your mind be used for worry. The people you love deserve all of you. And God will supply you with His fruits to even be able to love others when you give and leave your all with Him first and foremost. Don’t doubt what God can and will do when you stop trying to be the one to handle it all! He doesn’t ask us to. Quite the opposite in fact….present your weaknesses and He will make you strong. Just pray.

Following leaving your requests at the Lord’s feet, pray for the event that requests are NOT met! Pray for trust that God’s will is being carried out and an understanding that His way is bigger and grander, to understand that we may not understand! Now or ever. But to pray for acceptance, that we DO understand that we may not understand, to have peace with that. Our viewpoint is so tiny and our circumstances and emotions so fleeting. Pray for strength to endure the hardships you didn’t want, ask for comfort and all the right people and words to lift you up and get you through. Pray for an abolition of fear, a peace that transcends all understanding as you suffer through the trials you did not ask for and in fact, asked to be taken away. Just pray.

And then: THANK GOD. Thank God for all the good things He is doing because HE IS if you are looking. No matter how grave it gets, there is good. The more you have been praying about, the more things you realize he IS answering and making good in your life, whether in circumstances or at the very least, the attitude adjustments, the lessons, the awakenings, the awareness of others’ struggles, whatever else!! If you are continually praying, you are continually having things to thank God for, periodddd! They are there and you can see it clear as day when you start setting aside time and space to just SEE! God transforms you when you pray; believe when you continually pray, you will be changed and so will the lens from which you are viewing the initial situation, spilling out into the lens from which you are viewing many other things. Just pray.

And lastly, you’ll see when and where you are starting to get off track and you’ll readily be able to pinpoint your areas of weakness but it won’t be a bad thing. It’s a good thing. You will want to confess the ways you’re falling short and you will want to do better and you will learn and relearn how much you need the Lord in changing and you will start craving and needing time with Him to get what you need to not only survive each day and each moment but to flourish. Because you can flourish. Who doesn’t want to flourish! Just pray.

You may not know where to begin but just begin anywhere. Start setting aside time and just stumble through a prayer not having a clue what you are saying or hoping to get out of it. My prayers often start off a jumble, not knowing what I’m trying to say or what I’m trying to ask! Sometimes I’m so riled up I can’t even pray about my own hardship so I start praying for other people instead– the prayer requests of others in my life, and God softens my heart and all of a sudden I’m just automatically seeing things differently. JUST PRAY. And do that every day for a chunk of time and you’ll start to get it, experience a taste of God’s incredible goodness and power. And you’ll want more of it and you’ll start seeing who you are without God’s force and who you are with it and you won’t want to go it alone. Every issue that starts taking over you’ll just remind yourself “I’ll fret about this when I’ve given it a good week of solid prayer” and the time for fretting about it will be never, just like that. Just pray.

I ended most of my prayers with this line that Nate first brought into our prayers together: “I can’t.  You must.  I’m yours.  Show me the way.”  (a prayer borrowed from Romero).

THIS IS MY PIECE AND THAT IS A WRAP!!! THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR PART IN THIS ASTONISHING JOURNEY!