I awoke this morning with a profound sense of gratitude. It is the morning of my 57th birthday, and I am not enamored with getting older. I had asked my family to not even mention this date marking my crossing from 50-something toward the threshold of 60. But no one paid attention. A girlfriend asked me to breakfast, another to lunch. A friend bought me roses, my son a beautiful leather bag. My family arranged a dinner, my niece a walk, my realtor a tour of homes. I am thankful for each and every kindness and act of love toward me this day, but these are not the only reasons why my joy is so full.
Eleven years ago my own personal San Andres fault shifted. The tsunami hit without warning, washing away my health, my business, my personal possessions. Black toxic mold moved into my lungs, my blood, my brain and my organs. The illness and litigation that followed plagued my life for years. Simultaneously my beautiful son fell ill to addiction and bipolar disorder. They ravaged his body, his life. It was a decade of hospitals and losses, years eaten by the locusts. My marriage bent under the pressure of too many burdens. Finances crumbled beneath the weight of a bloated medical system. My own mind faltered. It was a season of destruction, of sweeping losses and darkness that seemingly had no end.
I prayed for years for God’s healing and intervention. I petitioned all those I knew who prayed, to pray. Last fall I began to break spiritual strongholds off my son’s and my life. For years I had been standing on Hebrews 11, the faith chapter. “Through faith they conquered kingdoms, administered justice, gained what was promised, shut the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, gained strength in weakness, became mighty in battle, put foreign armies to flight, and women received back their dead raised to life.”
I claimed the truth of God and the Word God despite the obscurity that blocked our view of victory. Friends and family members grew weary of my tenacious refusal to give up. Some even held an intersession and tried to reason with me that I was in denial. Silently I quoted those words from Hebrew to myself whenever I was in doubt, “By faith….women received back their dead raised to life.” I clung to the hem of His garment.
One day not long ago, while standing in Trader Joes, I heard God say quite calmly,
“Beverly, I am the God of all things.”
“Yes, Lord,” I replied.
And then he said, “Including your son.”
In that moment I knew that there is nothing beyond his grasp, his love, his redemption. Nothing. No one. I realized that it didn’t matter if my son knew God was the God of all things. It didn’t even matter if I knew. For our understanding of who God is does not alter the reality of who God is.
And so this year, in the way that only God can do, he brought my son out of Sinai and into the land of the living. Today he is sane, sober and medication free. He is not just doing well, he is thriving. God has returned his mind and career. He has sown seeds of healing and light into my son that are bearing fruit. He has returned my beautiful son to himself and to me, something that not long ago looked impossible. Faith, the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not yet seen.
On this morning of my 57th birthday, my heart is filled with gratitude for a loving God who hears our cries and sees our pain — the God of all things — whether we know it or not.