Pretty Please with a Cherry on Top

Five, the number of grace and the age of my youngest when I was diagnosed with stage 4 lymphoma. I can't help but think her age was prophetic to the season she was about to walk through. She was about to start Kindergarten and my son 3rd grade. Most parents would expect something as traumatic as a parent being diagnosed with cancer to evoke some pretty strong emotions so we were prepared for that as we talked about how to tell our children what we were facing. 

When you are as sick as I was, the first instinct is to "protect" children from the reality of how bad things are. We tend to "sugar coat" things for kids to somehow soften the blow but my husband and I decided from the beginning it was best to be honest with our kids. We wanted to share all the information we had and teach them to respond with faith. Our kids knew what cancer was, they had just watched God miraculously heal our children's pastor and dear friend of cancer. They prayed faithfully for her every single day and rejoiced when God miraculously healed her. So when we sat down to tell our kids then 5 and 8 years old that Mommy had cancer we knew some pretty raw emotions would follow but we also knew our kids would know how to respond. There were a lot of tears, there were a lot of questions, there were moments of confusion and fear, but mostly there was an unbelievable response of faith.

No Sugar Coat

Let's just be honest... You can sugar coat things all you want but kids have a sensitive spirit and they know when something is up. They may not have the maturity to discern what they are picking up on but they are no less sensitive to what happens in the atmosphere around them than we are. In fact I believe they often times are far more sensitive to the atmospheres around them than we are. I believe this is simply because in their naivety they don't rationalize the spirit away. If there is tension in the home kids will feel it and it will effect them. If they don't know the cause of the tension it will increase their anxiety over a situation. Let me tell you, it was extremely difficult to look into the sweet faces of our children and tell them Mommy had cancer and we needed a miracle. But we knew if we were not honest, our kids would be far more stressed and anxious than if they were made fully aware of the situation. We also knew this was an opportunity to learn, grow and partner with a heart for the miraculous. This was an opportunity to stretch their faith far beyond their years. Stretch their faith it did, my children amazed me with their fervent prayer, and their resilience in traumatic circumstances. 

Every night my children would lay their hands on me and pray for healing. They would give me lots of hugs and take care of me at every opportunity. Did they feel scared? yes, often. But they knew how to deal with fear because we had taught them. My children know how to pray and that is exactly what they did.

Faith of a Child

There were a lot of people praying for us, the army of prayer warriors was amazing and humbling. Between our friends, family, church, community and social media there were countless prayers and unbelievable support for us. It was one particular prayer however that affected me deeply, that was the prayer of my daughter. Every night she would lay her hands on me and pray "Jesus, please, pretty please, pretty please with a cherry on top heal my Mommy from cancer." Every night I would walk out of her room with tears in my eyes and tell Father " If you hear any prayer... hear that one".

A lot of adults would probably say "oh that's so sweet, 'pretty please with a cherry on top', how cute." But I knew it was much more than that. I knew "pretty please with a cherry on top" was her deepest cry, and heart desire. I knew for my 5 year old it was the sound of intercession. It was pure, it was desperate, it was surrendered, and it was full of faith. She was pleading with Holy Spirit for the life of her Mom.

Breakthrough

Jesus would come through for my little girl in a very big way. He brought me miraculously through the cancer, extensive treatment, and a stem cell transplant. My daughter is now 8 and has not lost her heart for healing and intercession. She has great faith. If your not feeling well she is the first to pray for you and when she does she expects God to show up and heal. It's beautiful and I pray she never loses that faith and expectation.

I recently was in a meeting where a woman shared a powerful testimony of her life, losing her mother to cancer as an adult and her own heart of intercession through that experience. As I listened to her story I was a mess, for a lot of reasons but mostly because the story hit remarkably close to home. The Lord spoke to me in that meeting and told me that the faith of my daughter played a significant role in my healing. She expected Him to heal, she was not afraid to get her hopes up, not afraid of being disappointed, she just held onto raw, beautiful, undiluted faith.

How many times as a child were you told "don't get your hopes up"? How many times have you said it as an adult? I'd like to challenge that theory. Get your hopes up, expect God to move, let your faith rise up higher and higher until you see the breakthrough you need. Then rejoice as you watch your miracle unfold.