Bold Prayers That Changed My Life (part 3)

Earlier this month, I had an opportunity to speak to a women’s group for Baptist Women’s World Day of Prayer. I shared with them Six Bold Prayers that Changed My Life. This post is the third in a series of posts that is based on that speech.

You can read the earlier posts by clicking on the title. The first bold prayer is Lord, Bless Me. The second bold prayer is Show Me Your Glory.

I will continue to share those bold prayers over the next several days. I hope you’ll come back to find out more about how these prayers changed my life and can change your life too!

Bold Prayer #3: Help my unbelief! (Mark 9:22-24)

The third bold prayer I wanted to share is from the New Testament, and it’s probably my favorite because I can relate to it so much.

In Mark chapter 9, Jesus meets a man who has a demon-possessed son.

Whenever the demon seizes this young man, he begins to foam at the mouth, grind his teeth, and be thrown to the ground and become rigid. The father has sought help before, even from Jesus’ disciples, but so far no one has been able to free his son from the demon-possession. So, the father approaches Jesus and says, “If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.”

Jesus answered to him, “If you can? Everything is possible for the one who believes.”

Immediately the father of the boy cried out, “I do believe; help my unbelief!”

Can you relate? Have you ever known God could do something and yet you had unbelief that He would do it for you?

The summer my youngest child turned 15 years old, I began to notice a change in her behavior. It was subtle at first. She was not as talkative. She seemed to be withdrawing from her friends and normal activities. She stopped eating some of her favorite foods, trading out Oreos for baby carrots and chicken nuggets for apple slices. As time passed by, she quit eating any meals I cooked and only ate small portions of uncooked vegetables, fat-free yogurt, and the occasional small bowl of oatmeal. If she was dieting, it was working because by early November, her clothes were hanging off her body. 

But there was more to it. … something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. Her hair had a dull look. Her skin had a strange color. She seemed lethargic, lacking energy to even walk across the room. Something was seriously wrong. Was it a physical problem? A mental health issue? Or maybe both?

One evening, my daughter admitted she hadn’t had a bowel movement in over 2 weeks. Immediately, my husband and I took her to the ER … praying the doctors could help us figure out what was wrong. That night, my beautiful little girl was diagnosed with anorexia. She was starving herself to death.

I don’t know about you, but I never had any sort of experience with eating disorders. Much to my surprise, the ER doctor sent us home that with a pamphlet titled “All You Need to Know About Anorexia” and the instructions “do your best to get her to eat.”

Let me say that the two-page pamphlet definitely was not all I needed to know about anorexia. In fact, it basically told me everything I already knew (which was not much) and nothing about what I really needed to know.

Secondly, the instructions to do my best to get my daughter to eat were the most pointless and unhelpful set of instructions I ever have been given. Have you ever tried to feed someone who doesn’t want to eat? Remember when your babies didn’t like a particular food … how they would clamp their little gums shut and not take in any of whatever was on the spoon? Imagine that, only with a 15-year-old girl. Getting her to eat willingly was not going to happen easily.

We began to see a lot of specialists … psychiatrists, nutritional counselors, dieticians. You name it. We spent that winter going from doctor to doctor seeking out help for our daughter. I read books. I scoured the internet. I made all sorts of enticing concoctions in a valiant attempt to get my daughter to eat something. Meanwhile, she continued to refused to eat and the pounds melted off her body.

In early January, one of the doctors casually said that if by her next appointment the following week my daughter had lost 2 more pounds, she would have to get a feeding tube and go into a psychiatric ward for a 3-month stay. Just the week before, she had lost 4 pounds total, so I felt like this was a done deal. I begged the doctor … “Please is there any other way you can help us?!”

There wasn’t anything else the doctor could do. It was up to God now. And to be honest, I wasn’t exactly sure if God would help after all. I mean, I was praying but so far it felt like all my prayers were bouncing off the ceilings and crashing back down to the floors.

Have you been there? Feeling like everything is about to fall apart? You know God can help, and you want to believe He will … but there is an element of unbelief too. Will God come through for me?

That’s exactly where I was. And I remember I decided all I could do was trust God … no matter what. 

It wasn’t an overnight miracle, but God did work in our situation. And that journey to healing started with what God did in me … and He began with my unbelief.

How did God come to me in my time of unbelief? Two main ways …

First, God reminded me of the power of praise. Psalm 22:3 says that God inhabits the praise of His people. God dwells in our praises. If God is dwelling somewhere, then He hasn’t abandoned us. If He is inhabiting something, then in that place He is active and working. With that thought, I began to put on praise music in our home. I kept it going all day and into the night. I sang along to it often, but even when I felt like I could not lift my voice in praise, my ears and the ears of everyone who lived in our home heard God’s named praised over and over.

Praising God is expressing absolute trust in Him, no matter what is happening in our lives. It is stating that we believe God is present and in control of current circumstances. Praise shows that we do not fear God has abandoned us but remains with us in our hour of greatest need. So praising God was an important first step in defeating my doubt.

The second thing God reminded me of was the power of His own word. The Bible is living. The words are powerful. Praying scripture glorifies God. It helps keep us focused on what is most important and appropriately express our feelings to God. Finally, Jesus prayed scripture. He also told his disciples in John 15: 7-8, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you want and it will be done for you.”

I posted scripture all over my daughter’s bedroom … especially around her bed. I taped scripture to bathroom mirrors, the refrigerator door, and inside cabinets. Anywhere I thought my eyes might land with regularity, I put a Bible verse. Daily, I prayed these verses back to God as I asked Him to intervene in our desperate situation. At night, I went into my daughter’s bedroom and prayed verses over her while she slept.

As I mentioned, my daughter’s healing wasn’t immediate. She wasn’t healed in the blink of an eye. But God did work in her. She did not end up needing a feeding tube or a stay in a psych ward after all. She never did lose that two pounds I feared she would lose. Her weight loss stabilized for the next several weeks, and by then God had begun to move in other ways.

Five years has passed since my daughter’s diagnosis. I’m happy to tell you that she is doing wonderful – no longer struggling with anorexia or any other eating disorder. She is a college junior … an honors student majoring in Public Relations. She has a vibrant, bubbly, funny personality.

I’m thankful for the miracle God worked in my daughter. But I’m just as thankful for His compassion on me through my time of unbelief.

We all have doubts. Sometimes we feel guilty for our doubts, but even the strongest Christians can experience something that brings about a season of doubt. Aren’t you glad that Jesus doesn’t turn us away when we doubt, but that He reaches out with compassion? I am! 

If you are in a situation when you are doubting God, the last thing you feel is bold. However, it’s a bold prayer to ask God to help you in your unbelief.