Have you ever wondered...

...if God answers prayer?

I mean, you hear about these situations where missionaries in foreign fields have experienced miracles. Sometimes you hear about situations where someone has something wrong with them, something fatal, and then, mysteriously, it's just gone. There's no explanation, scientific anyway, to give for why these things happen. Non-believers just chalk it up to 'wow, that's amazing'.

For me though, I KNOW with 100% certainty that it is GOD intervening in those situations. To some people it doesn't make sense, why God would intervene in some situations and not others? But who are we to know the mind of God? We may never know or understand that mystery. But in some scenarios, God does choose to intervene. He hears the prayers of his children.

Most of you reading this know me on Facebook and so you know already that today my cousin's wife Kim was randomly shot in the head while she was at the park with her two children. Throughout the course of the day, we've been learning more and more about what happened. I've waited until now to post this, because we were uncertain about many of the details.

More and more details are being revealed and in fact, the man who shot her has apparently turned himself in to the police. When my mom first called me, I immediately emailed our pastor and asked that the family be put on the prayer chain. At that time (this was I guess around noon, maybe before), all I knew is that Kim was at the park with her baby in her arms when she was shot in what we were initially told was the neck. She was being air-lifted to a hospital while her baby (who had fallen to the ground when she was shot) was taken to a local hospital. The baby checked out fine, but we were still uncertain as to what would happen to Kim.

So after I emailed our pastor, I started bombarding my own Facebook and Twitter pages with requests for prayer. I had, at last count, 15 different people (not including the two churches that two of these people were affiliated with) who told me that they were praying. Those are just the ones who voiced it via Facebook. I am sure there were others committed to praying today who just didn't post to my Facebook. And I am just ONE person. I do not know how many people prayed today for this situation. But I can guarantee you it was a LOT. I still can't get over how overwhelming it is, when I think about how many people must have been praying for our family.

I found out this evening that the man approached Kim, and from what I understand was a very close range, shot her in right temple. The bullet exited through her left jaw. Now I am no doctor, and I have never done any kind of studying on gunshot wounds. I have never looked up statistics to see what the probability is of living after being shot in this manner. But my gut tells me that the odds weren't great that she could survive something like this. BUT SHE DID! And it is ALL GOD. He gets all the credit and all the glory. I know that He answered the prayers that were lifted today. He doesn't always answer prayers the way we want him to. But in this case, He did. And I am truly grateful to each one of you who took even just a moment today to lift a prayer for Kim and her family. I pray that God will bless each and every one of you in a very clear and tangible way!

And if you are reading this, and you struggle believing in God's love and God's plan for our lives, I pray that your heart will be opened to Him tonight. I have seen God's hand at work today in the horrific tragedy that took place in Texas this morning. Prayers were lifted up, heard, and answered today!! God doesn't always make sense. Tragedy doesn't always make sense. We will never understand the mind of God or all the intricacies that this life consists of. But I just can't go through life NOT believing that God is there, and that He is ready to hold and love anyone who comes to Him. We all need a Savior. God doesn't care who you are or what you've done, or how many bad things you've done. He loves you for YOU. He loves you because He created you and He wants you to know and understand His love for you.