Are You Too Small, Really?

I have a precious memory about a family member who had a hard time understanding the concept of Daylight Savings Time. His parents told my husband and me that the child understood that we would lose (or gain) one full hour on that special day. He just couldn’t understand what happened to that hour. Where did it go? Several times that day he would ask his mom what time it was. When she told him the time, he would say, “But what time is it, really?”

I love that child to this day.

Recently I have been connecting this memory to real-time events. A precious child in our church body, whose name is Asher, went to a doctor’s appointment that led to an emergency trip to CHOP in King of Prussia, followed by surgery to remove a cancerous growth on his right kidney at CHOP’s Philadelphia campus.

Asher’s parents faithfully sent out specific prayer requests and concerns throughout this ordeal so that we could pray as a church body, not only for Asher and his family, but for all of the medical staff who would be treating him. All over social media, the prayers went out. Friends and family put out the call for a little boy that many didn’t even know. They just loved Chris and Grace, Summer and Seth, and all of their families, and were entrusting their son to Jehovah Rapha, the God who heals.

God heard these prayers, and in His great goodness, Asher’s surgery was successful. The tumor was removed completely. As the family waits to hear the details of any possible future treatments, Asher has returned to good health and a happy disposition. As a church body, we continue to pray for God to provide wisdom and care for this beautiful child. Really, we have seen God move.

Personally, I was moved to tears by a Facebook comment left by Chris’s sister, Karly, before Asher’s surgery. I do not know Karly, but I was struck by the points she made.

Above everything else, Karly said that Asher’s testimony has already been marked by his experiences this summer. She referenced the day when he might understand more fully all of the wondrous things that happened to him when he was three years old. I noticed the future orientation in which Karly spoke of Asher’s testimony. One day he will marvel at the way God moved in his diagnosis, his treatment, and in his healing. One day he will see how faithfully and specifically and continually his parents have loved him and watched over him. One day he will see how deeply he is loved by his siblings, his aunts and uncles, and Connie Lee.

In my tears, I asked myself if I really look to the future with hope when I am struggling.

Karly went on to tell Asher that he had an army behind him. An ARMY? Can you believe that God would send an army of people to stand behind a three year old boy and pray? Really?

Isn’t that exactly what God did? Didn’t He tell His people to pray for Asher’s family, especially his sister, Summer? Didn’t He remind these people to pray for the hearts and minds and fingers of the surgeon and his team? Didn’t He do that so our eyes could see Him move in loving detail? I think He really did.

I must confess that I do not see God—or His army—as He really is. I desperately want to remember Asher’s army. I want to be shored up by the knowledge that God is here. I want to believe it and lift up my head.

Finally, Karly told Asher that she prayed he would remember this ongoing testimony of God’s love and faithfulness should he ever feel that he is too small. Was he ever too small, really?

Do I ever think that I am too small? Do you? Am I just one among billions of people in the world today? Yes, I really am. But how does my viewpoint change when I consider myself a child of God in the Lord’s army? Isn’t that really how God sees me? He has loved me and adopted me, chosen me as His own. He has appointed me for service. He has numbered my days. He has called me by name. I am His.

Like that hour of Daylight Savings Time and the miraculous wonder of successful surgery, so many things are really too marvelous for me to understand, as Psalm 131 says. But, oh, how I praise God that He turns my head and reminds me that I am never too small for His hand to reach me. He tells me what is true. He really does.