Jesus with skin on.

The Tween has been sick.  It's not cancer or anything terminal and she will get better but it has been a long, exhausting, and scary season for us.  Many times over the last month and a half she has asked me, "Where is God? I am talking to Him but I do not see Him or feel Him."I feel her frustration and try to offer her a seemingly abstract God who is in the stars and moon and created us and cares deeply for her, but she wants a tangible God with answers and results. And so do I.I know how she feels as I have felt that way more times than I care to remember. I wish I had the answer to why bad things happened to good people or why God's timing seems slow. So I offer her my thoughts but they are not enough. We cry and we trust God but I feel  so very...down here and Him...up there. Distant I suppose. But I know my God better than that.  And I wonder ...."does she?"Our nature as humans (or at least mine anyway) is to try to endure trials alone. Usually in our own strength. The pressure increases so we begin to pray. Then there comes the realization, "This is beyond me!"  and we reach out to those around us.  For me this is my spiritual family. Other Christians near and far who are fighting this fight and know how to stand in faith, for me and with me, praying to a loving God and expecting miracles.I composed a simple email and a text or two (hundred)"Please pray for my daughter." I should have done it sooner because it made all the difference in the world!  Not only did folks send comforting emails and texts, they brought food, movies, books, and much appreciated advice and wisdom. Many offered to babysit, cook, clean,  and even drive carpool.But most of all they prayed.Prayer is a powerful thing.There are days that are painful and dark.Then there are days where I can feel prayer working.Have you had those moments?The thought occurs to me that there is no reason on earth that I should feel calm, peaceful,  protected and full of faith and confidence. Nothing has changed about Sam's condition except for the fact that there are hundreds of people praying for her. For us. And I can feel it. She can feel it!This is where God is Sam.In these prayer warriors.In these who came to just sit with us.These who took time to beseech a holy God on your behalf.This is Jesus with skin on.....Jesus in others reaching out to help us is beautiful to behold. I am literally watching my daughter heal from the inside out for no apparent reason but prayer. This is how God works.As I have quoted from the Bible before, inGenesis 2:18 God says, "It is not good for man to be alone." and Ecclesiastes 4:10 "Woe to the one who falls and has no one there to pick him up."I am very relational, but there are times when I get so busy and burdened that I put the whole pack on my back, dig deep, focus and press through. The only thing I can liken it to is  giving birth. You realize there is no way out of this but through it. Like it or not! But even in that, there are "the chosen few"  holding your hand and cheering you on. We need that in the spiritual as well as the physical. Sometimes all the more we need someone by our side spiritually to say,"This pain is horrible and I am here. You will get through it."I have had to be that for Sam these last few months. Her Jesus with skin on. (a pitiful stand in I am afraid to say) but I have held up her arms when she can not and picked her up when she fell. I am beyond exhausted but thankful to those who did the same for me. This is what the Christian walk is all about.We continue to stand in the gap and pray for Sam as she is getting stronger everyday. She has seen God working in her life and coming to her rescue. Funny that I have asked God the same questions as Sam, and needed to see Him and touch Him and feel Him in this season and He has been faithful to give us both what we need.Ps 138:8The Lord will accomplish what concerns me;Your lovingkindness, O Lord, is everlasting;Do not forsake the works of Your hands.Exodus 17: 11-13As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning.  When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him and he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady till sunset.  So Joshua overcame the Amalekite army with the sword.