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How To Faithfully Fight For Our Children

Elisha said, “You will hold a son in your arms.” 

The child grew… and one day he said to his father, “My head! My head!”

She called her husband and said, “Please send me one of the servants and a donkey so I can go to the man of God quickly and return.” 

She said to her servant, 

“Lead on; don’t slow down… unless I tell you.” 

When she reached the man of God at the mountain, she took hold of his feet. The child’s mother said, “As surely as the Lord lives… I will not leave you.” 

Elisha said, “Take your son.” 

She came in, fell at his feet and bowed to the ground. Then she took her [healed] son and went out.

excerpts from 2 Kings 4:8-37 NIV

Living in a broken world that targets our children’s bodies and minds, we too have a choice to make: Do we trust only what we can understand, or do we trust God? Let's fight for our children with fierce faith- and point them to the One who heals as we do!
How To Faithfully Fight For Our Children

This brief but powerful story of the faithful Shunammite mother encapsulates the call on our lives as parents.

Her relationship with Elisha began when she offered him a room in her home. He repays her with the prophesy of a miracle son. 

Years later, her son, after crying out with severe head pain, dies in her arms.

This wealthy woman had a choice to make. 

In her greatest moment of fear and desperation, she could rely on her means, her status, her ability to afford the best of what 800 B.C. medicine had to offer – or – turn to the source of truth and hope. 

The Lord had used Elisha to give her son life – she had no doubt He could do it again.

Living in a broken world that targets our children’s bodies and minds, we too have a choice to make.

Do we rely solely on ourselves, our provisions, our “twenty-first century-pull-ourselves-up-by-our-bootstraps” mindset, or do we follow in the Shunammite woman’s footsteps?

This mom didn’t let a little thing like “death” stand in her way as she battled for her son.

How do we faithfully fight for our children?

1. Run to The Miracle Worker.

We can bravely take our pain, our fear, our expectations and place them where they belong – at the feet of the Holy One.

2. Don’t slow down.

In our parenting years, there are no manuals, no blueprints, no reliable forecasts to tell us how this will go. When crisis hits, medical needs arise, or their hearts seem so far from the Lord that all hope seems lost, these are the moments we cannot slow our pace. Running to the Father on their behalf is our honor and privilege, and we must not grow weary in the pursuit.

3. Resolve to remain close to the Father and trust His saving grace.

No matter the grade point average, the diagnosis or the long-term outcome, we stay close to the Author of our children’s stories and trust Him with the narrative – with all its plot twists and character changes.  

4.  Praise Him with gratitude.

When He intervenes, when He heals, when He remains silent, and even when He asks us to endure their pain – whether we see and feel His purposes or not – we can have no better reaction than to worship the One who created them in the first place.

5. Walk in the life He offers.

Rare is the child who moves into adulthood unscratched by the thorns of the world, but our job is not to make sure they never have wounds. That is impossible. 

Our job is to point them – take them – run them – to the one who heals all.

Blessings,

Denise C. McDowell

Read more of Denise’s work at www.denisemcdowell.com

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