Miracle on 72A Ave.*

*Disclaimer: I don’t usually like to share about Wayne’s personal life. I must say, if he had a blog and wrote all about my life on it, I might be a bit miffed, too. However, this post, though it centres around Wayne’s issue, is actually about God’s great love and mercy…given in abundance today to my most gracious husband. I love you, Wayne.

So, Wayne’s medical is tomorrow – that’s the test they do to make sure he has a heartbeat and four limbs, 10 fingers and toes and no other weird conditions before he goes off to Basic Training (think he’ll pass?).

It’s been a worry, though; last month at the men’s retreat with our church, he decided to try to keep up with the 18-year-olds who were having push-up competitions at 2 o’clock in the morning up at Camp Stillwood (of course - when else would have been a good time to get macho?). Turns out that 28-year-olds can’t exactly do the handstand push-ups that a gangly teen can do. Wayne strained both his wrists trying and has been on anti-inflammatory meds ever since with much pain and swelling in both wrists. We started P90X together but he had to stop doing the weight resistance sessions in order to heal up his wrists. Heck, if you can’t do push-ups without pain, you’ll never make it in the Army! (Our cousin, Robert, just called on Saturday from CFB Kingston, Ontario, to give Wayne the low-down: he’s been in the Army only a month and has seen one guy do 1,100 push-ups in one day! If just one of your buttons is undone, it’s an automatic 25 push-ups. Ouch.)

So we’ve been praying for healing and for strength, confident, at least, that God is the one opening all these doors for us to pursue this life of commitment to the Army. We know that anything set up by the Lord will meet resistance from the enemy, so it shouldn’t have surprised us when this type of injury hit Wayne at what seems like the wrong time.

But our God is bigger and more powerful! It is a Psalm 103 kind of day!

Wayne awoke this morning and came downstairs with a look of bewilderment on his face – he got down on the floor and pounded off five push-ups right in front of me! He stood and bent his hands so far back they almost touched his forearm – the pain and swelling had disappeared, and healing had occurred. We prayed through tears of joy with thanksgiving to Christ, who says, in the passage we chose for our wedding, “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32).

Two more little twists in this story: this weekend, our pastor happens to be preaching on the miracle of healing (weird coincidence?). And last week, Wayne had a hankering to watch The Prince of Egypt, so we rented it. This morning, I found myself singing Miriam’s song and realized just how it applied to this day:

In this time of fear
When prayer so often proved in vain
Hope seemed like the summer birds
Too swiftly flown away
Yet now I'm standing here
With heart so full I can't explain
Seeking faith and speaking words
I never thought I'd say

There can be miracles when you believe
Though hope is frail
It's hard to kill
Who knows what miracles
You can achieve
When you believe
Somehow you will
You will when you believe...

Let this be an encouragement to you today. We are blessed.