My Life With Crohns So Far... Part 2

So, my brother Paul has had Crohns for years (misdiagnosed) and his health has deteriorated. My brother Charles and I stay late after church youth group one night and ask God to give us the disease if it would make Paul better. At that moment, God ended up saying Yes to one of us.

Like any other parent, God answers our prayers with Yes, No and Maybe Laters. The fact that He answers us at all is amazing to me. When I was growing up I had a really cool poster on my wall. See, my parents used to get the National Geographic and every once and a while they'd have these really cool pull-out posters inside. The one I had on my wall was a picture of the known universe at that time.

It started, in one corner of the poster, with a box with a picture of our planet with the sun. And that box zoomed out and was part of another box that showed our planet in the solar system. And that box zoomed out to show our solar system in our section of the Milky Way galaxy. And that box zoomed out to show the entire Milky Way galaxy. And that box zoomed out to show our galaxy in cluster of galaxies. And that box zoomed out to show our cluster of galaxies in a super cluster of galaxies. And that box zoomed out and showed those super clusters in a group of other super clusters. And that box zoomed out to the known universe. And I remember trying really hard to understand just how massive the universe was… it was so hard to grasp the enormity of it all.

Years later, after the Hubble telescope went up into space, in the paper there was a picture taken of these two spiral galaxies colliding. And the article said it would take billions of years for the collision to complete. And I remember thinking back to that poster on the wall and I thought, “not only does God understand all the complexities of these two galaxies colliding, but it will happen all within his timeframe. He can comprehend billions of years the way we comprehend seconds in a day.” And it occurred to me how amazing it is that, considering all the God understands and how infinite his time, that in this section of our universe, in our section of the galaxy, in our section of the solar system, in this little square on a little planet, that God loves me enough to listen to my every prayer every minute, every day.

It is so hard to grasp the enormity of his love for us.

So, I found it funny that, out of all of the moments in the universe, God chose that one moment, where I asked for my brother’s illness, for Him to not only listen, but to say Yes! We often treat God like Santa Clause… “I want a new bike,” “I want a new job,” “I want a new relationship…” And out of all of the things that I had asked God for up to that point in my life, it was that request to which the Lord actually said Yes!

I sometimes think that, maybe, when we think God isn’t listening, he’s just over looking at those colliding galaxies. By the time he looks back and says “I’m sorry, you said something?” six years had passed…

...to 1989... and I'm now 23.

To be continued...