Prayer for God’s Will and the Power of His Hand

Our Father In Heaven...

Through Your Holy Spirit here, in and through and within us, on Earth, we thank You for our faith, first and foremost.

Above all, You, in the heavenly glories, stand eternally as the Paragon of Creation. You designed all things to work harmoniously within universal creation, and we specifically praise You for having created our little one. He or she is not smallest to You in all the universe. He or she is already known to and by You.

It is often hard for us mere mortals to understand what you are, alone, as the Sovereign of Life, are doing and allowing here on Earth. But by faith we say there is a purpose in all things under creation’s ceiling. Our baby has a purpose, and though we may not know it just now, his or her purpose is vouchsafed and sure.

We pray only for the discernment and the doing of Your will. This baby of ours is more appropriately Yours. Help us to know how to honour You in the context of our baby’s life – however fleeting it is likely to be.

We believe in the power and in the promise of the divine movement of Your hand; but we will not assume that this is Your will in our circumstance. We surrender ourselves to You, afresh.

Our Lord, our Saviour, our King, help us to do everything to discern and do Your will. Make it as clear as possible to know how to obey You. And give us courage when the difficult decisions remain to be made.

We asked these things in and through the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Because it was Jesus who was scourged and insulted and disdained so unjustly, we are encouraged to maintain our obedient resolve. We know that God will vindicate us at the right time if we do not give up submitting to his will.

AMEN.

***

Oh Father of our faith,

Keep us nice and safe,

As we venture this road unsure,

Be with us night and day,

Let it only be through Your say,

That our child comes through Your door.

These matters are now before God, and we are thankful that life has been made simple, now. When we discern and do the matters of God’s will, then we are ideally placed to enjoy a simple and peaceful life that understands life is in God’s hand.

© 2014 S. J. Wickham.

Our Baby News from Sarah and Steve Wickham

To our Lakeside Church family, brothers and sisters in Christ everywhere, friends and our dear family.

We would like to convey our thanks to everyone who has messaged, emailed, sent cards or spoken with us in the last month regarding the progress of our unborn baby.  We have very much appreciated every message of love and support, even if we are unable to reply to them all.

Our lives have taken quite an unexpected turn since that Tuesday on 1 July, with the discovery at a regular 19 week scan of a Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia in baby – in this case there is no diaphragm on the left side, allowing other organs to drift into the chest cavity, displacing the heart and squashing the lungs.

We were referred to King Edward for specialist care under Prof. Jan Dickinson, and through an amniocentesis it was discovered that baby has Pallister-Killian Syndrome, a rare chromosomal disorder.  Some babies are mildly affected, but many will have severe to profound intellectual disability, will be wheelchair bound, as well as have many other severe physical development and health issues.  As part of the condition, Sarah has too much amniotic fluid (Polyhydramnios) which means the ‘bump’ is much larger than it should be, and puts bub at risk of an early birth. Sarah will also now need regular amnioreduction procedures to reduce pressure on her own lungs.

At this weeks scan we finally learnt the prognosis the team of doctors are giving for our baby, and that is that there are clear indicators in our case that baby will not survive.

It is difficult to explain the grief we are now experiencing.  Initially it felt as though we were in a calm before a storm as we felt as though day to day life was much as it was before.  Yet we were contemplating a birth day that will not be anything like the beautiful day of Ethan’s birth, weeks (probably months) of visiting baby in hospital, and then a life ahead with many practical and financial implications.  But with this weeks news it is now as though the storm clouds are starting to roll in.

Many of you have offered meals and practical support, and we appreciate that.  Please be assured that we will reach out when we do need assistance.  For now we ask that you pray for baby and for us.

And so we come to how do we pray for baby, and all we can say is – God’s will be done.  Our God is a God who can perform a miracle in this little baby’s body if he so wishes.  Our God is also the God who, in the words of Job (Job 1:21), gives and takes away.  How then do we pray?  If it is God’s will that baby survives – then that there will be ample time for the lungs to grow, the organs are held back by God’s hand to allow room for the lungs to grow and mature, and that baby thrives and has a fulfilling life.  And if it is God’s will that we only know this baby for a short time, that God will make that clear to us both and we will know when to let go.

Please know that we still want to hear your news – we want to rejoice with you in your good news and grieve with you in your not great news too, just as you too ride the wave of grief with our baby news.

With much love

Steve and Sarah Wickham

If you want to know more about Pallister-Killian Syndrome, find it below ... http://www.rarechromo.org/information/Chromosome%2012/Pallister-Killian%20syndrome%20FTNW.pdf

The Eternal Victory and Joy of Love

“Let nothing perturb you, nothing frighten you. All things pass. God does not change. Patience achieves everything.”

― Teresa of Ávila (1515–1582)

Love is your best attribute, your highest prized possession.

Love seeks for the other, and learns for itself.

Love turns the world upside down, but nothing else makes more sense.

The world cannot understand what it so admires: love.

Love is the hardest thing to practice, but it has the best rewards.

Hold on to the love of courage, of hope, of joy.

Give and give and give some more; that’s love.

Love cannot fail, is perfect in every sense, and is The answer.

The more we give away, the more God gives back.

Love cannot harm nor be harmed. Love has no enemies.

Love is your greatest work, making work feel like rest.

Love is your legacy; all your life’s work that ever meant anything.

There is a higher goal within our humanity than we are often aware of. We find that love – as an ideology – is admirable, but an increasing number in the world are prepared to attempt to defeat love. They have not been blessed by love, and instead have been indoctrinated in fear.

The terrorist has had his heart seared to any effect of love. He does not know that love cannot be defeated, and so he tries. It may be too late for him. The world needs to respond by building more love into life, lessening prejudice, and promoting greater kindness and grace.

There is an eternal victory and joy in love.

Whether we live or die, love lives long, and it goes on and on and on.

So, if we agree, and there is no point in not agreeing with the truth, we have no other purpose other than to love.

When all else falls under the banner of love all of life runs better.

For the patience involved in being loving there is a grand reward, relied upon through the faithfulness of God to remind us: our patience in the name of love is well justified and vindicated, almost every time.

But love will also find us lonely, because love is far from the world. But our faith must rise above the sordid standards of the world seeking to drag us down to its streets. Love will be an easy target at times, but it’s to be our only goal if God is our God.

***

Whether we live or die, love lives long, and it goes on and on and on. Love will be our victory if we abide in her and don’t give up.

Love will give us joy if our joy is to love.

© 2014 S. J. Wickham.

The Blessed Gift In Brokenness of Contrition

“Pray humbly to the Lord, that He may give you the spirit of contrition.”

— Thomas à Kempis (1380–1471)

The state of feeling sorry for bad behaviour. That is contrition’s definition. And such is the grace of God that we are palpably forgiven! But only as we reach the state of feeling sorry for our bad behaviour – both that which is inherent and our actual acts of wrong – are we blessed of God – and we owe to our contrition, brokenness.

We were not broken because God didn’t care. We were broken to be shown the way to our need. If we ever lose sight of our brokenness we lose the way to contrition, and the Lord’s Spirit may just fly away from practical experience. Could there be a worse outcome in the whole of life?

So now we may readily see that to our brokenness we can attach praise. We are afforded the insight of knowing the truth that gives life; we, by our state and condition, are hopelessly far from God. Yet, we so need to be very near.

We cannot come near if we are strong in our own strength.

We come near to God by being strong only about our brokenness.

Strength is a falsity; it leads us far from God and keeps us afar. With strength we have a constant frustration deep in our unconscious. We cannot experience favour, given that favour is given when we own up to the fact we cannot gain what we need, yet it is freely given.

To experience God’s favour in the core of our being, to recognise our need of it, and to humbly submit contritely, owning our sin – not bothering as much about others’ sin; that is the raw, undiluted Christian experience that is so rarely experienced today.

As Jesus himself was broken, we too are found broken as we come near to God.

Christianity is centrally about relationship, which is a personal and volitional accountability to God, alone. To look inwards at our own sordid hearts, and to remain there contritely, that is to know God. So few, it seems, do it. But you can and you should. I know blessing is only as far as contrition away. To own my own fault is the magnanimity of the Lord – forgiven, without condition, for all my wrongdoing, both potential and real, in the past, present, and future.

***

God has turned the world upside down. Power is useless in the Kingdom unless others are empowered through faith, hope, and love. The way to the favour of God is through contrition – to be genuinely truthful about our sin and our need of God. And brokenness is blessed because it takes us to the heart of contrition, where, only there, can God mould us in the form of his Son.

© 2014 S. J. Wickham.

How God Comes Alive At the Loneliest of Times

Driving a long road, alone, and bereft of any sense of direction besides to keep going, this loneliest of times was to become the making of me. But who would have known? The ‘making of me’ was never destined to become a world exclusive event, but the ‘making of us’ is always eternally poignant in the heavens.

It was September and October 2003. My marriage had collapsed before my very eyes and everything I put my stock of image into was obliterated. I may have become a workaholic and a weekend binge drinker, but my true foundation was my family – at that time it wasn’t even God.

I lost it all, yet I had to lose it all to gain it all.

God comes alive all of a sudden when we need him. The Lord is silent until pain bellows even into the fissures of our mortal soul. At the loneliest of times, when we are so empty because we have accepted our weakness, and we need to remain weak to gather God’s power, we have access to Spiritual strength. This transcends our understanding. It can only ever be of God.

It’s too easy to say, “In our weakness is God’s strength.” It gets clichéd. But when we understand that we ought to glory even (especially, even) in our weakness, we have the capacity to gather this otherwise ungatherable strength of God.

Glorying in our weakness is not slothing about, celebrating the ease of retirement. But it is the shunning of our selfish desires that come to the fore too much. The more of God, the less of us, the better off we are ever to be.

The beauty of God is manifest in the tumultuous struggle which tyrannises our sense for justice in life. When we maintain our trust that God is good despite how insanely destabilised we are, God becomes that power he has always promised to become. Suddenly the power to turn the tables on our experience is freed up.

***

In the loneliest times the Spirit of God talks. We often make too much of complex and not enough of the simple. God is coming alive in your struggle, today, if you will lean on the only One who can help. And he will help. God does not delay in bringing us strength, but just make sure you use that strength wisely, and ultimately for others.

© 2014 S. J. Wickham.