Photo credit: BlessingHealthSystem.org
This week I had planned to publish a special prayer on “Walks of Faith in Wooden Shoes.” God had other plans. Unexpectedly, I learned that someone more special than any prayer I could ever write has stage four cancer. Just how special is she?
I will call her “Angel.” That is not her name. She does what angels do. She is who angels are. She is seen bending over others just as angels are pictured in the Bible and in great works of art.
Angel is self-effacing. For all she has done for me and others, she gives all the glory to God. Like every living angel, she is not the important one. She is insignificant and humble. The God she serves and those she cares for are the consequential ones. The ones who matter more than her.
Most children of God get their wings when they die and ascend into the heavenly healing Arms of God. Not Angel. She received her wings long ago. You cannot see her wings. Yet, they are there. They are real. Her wings are as beautiful as her exuberant smile. The light of her wings sprinkles God’s light and love on me. On the thousands of people whose lives she has saved. In her life, service, and care, God’s grace once unseen is made visible. So bright and luminous that you need spiritual sunglasses not to be blinded by Holy light.
She has saved my life several times. I am only one. Thanks to God, there are innumerable others who have been equally blessed. This living angel’s work has provided inspiration of hope to those who had little or none.
On October 27, 2011, I met her in San Francisco at the St. Francis Hotel. I was attending a Collaborative Divorce event, The Forum. The networking and educational event was sponsored and conducted by the IACP (The International Academy of Collaborative Professionals). She was not a participant at the Forum. I did not meet her in person. God sent her to me as a virtual angel on the internet.
I was surfing the internet in my hotel room. In angel-like fashion she appeared on a page. Her words captured me. I listened to her lecture for an hour. Her name was etched in my memory. I did not need her at the time. God placed her in my path. In God’s way He said to me, “Please know that here is my angel. She is waiting for you to know Me better. One day she will be My body and My spirit to help you when you need her most.”
All of this is not enough to show just how special she is. Angel established a healthcare business dedicated to God. She quotes scripture on her website and correspondence. She is a devoted foster parent to orphaned, abandoned, and abused children. She adopted a foster child. She found room in the inn of her home to shelter families from distant lands. To be family to immigrants who have none.
So, as Angel submits to rigorous rounds of radiation and chemotherapy, loses more of her hair each day and faces the prospect of surgery to remove what medicine cannot, I ask that you pray for her. Pray for every child of God who is currently fighting cancer and needs deployment of the most powerful force on Earth—the love of God. The same power Angel administers in her ministry for others.
Please remember what Angel said to me this week. “Jack, I cannot say in words what it means to me, what strength and hope it gives me, to know that you and others are praying for me.”
God in Scripture says how to pray for healing.
Jeremiah 17:14
“Heal me, LORD, and I’ll be healed. Save me and I’ll be saved, for you are my heart’s desire.”
Let us pray.
Dear God, in prayer I ask that You provide Your love, hope, and healing to Jack’s friend, Angel, and to everyone of Your children on Earth who is fighting cancer.
God, I pray that You empower the healthcare and medical professionals who are treating Angel and others like her to be their best. That Your love and their healing hands cure Angel and all like persons.
God, please send Your angels to bend over Angel and all who are ill or infirm. May they shine Your healing light on them. Amen
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If you think Jack’s prayer helps you or will help someone you know, please forward it to them. Jack may never make millions selling books or writing prayers, but spreading God’s good news to others is reward enough for him.
Ann Boland, Jack’s Publicist
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