Pray for Ava

I can't help but draw a connection between Psalm 4 and a recent development in the life of an acquaintance of mine.

My friend Joel's 5-year-old niece was diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer just this week. I went to middle/high school with Joel, and his dad was my pastor for almost all of the years my family lived in Florida. They went in with her complaining of headaches and within 24 hours or so after a CAT scan she was in surgery to remove a tangerine sized tumor. The initial pathology shows that it is not only rare, but especially rare in children, and resistant to traditional methods of cancer treatment.

All that to say, even in the last 4 or 5 days it's been... encouraging? I don't even know what word to use... to see how each member of the family has responded to the crisis (I've been following Josh's blog--the father--and his brothers, Joel's and Isaac's blogs since I got home). They are admitting to deep despair and confusion but also deep trust and confidence in the love of God. As the notes in the ESV Study Bible state, Psalm 4 is a "perfect example of expressing trust amid troubling circumstances." David makes two urgent requests, but sandwiched between them is this recall of his past experience with God: "you have given me relief when I was in distress." The notes continue: "Past experience emboldens the faithful to confident prayer."

As I read on the father's blog today, they are praying and praying. Praying for healing here, but also knowing that there is perfect healing for her in another place, they are confident in a God who heals. Whether that same God chooses to heal in the here and now or in the world to come, one thing is for sure: He will comfort and strengthen them. And they rest in that as much as they can. They are godly people, like those mentioned in verse 3. The Hebrew used there for "godly" is the adjective form of "steadfast love." It means that they are people who trust in God's steadfast love.

Today in my reading from Beside Still Waters, Spurgeon says "God's thoughts are toward you. He is refining you, and He desires your highest good." God loves with a perfect love all those who are His.

Everything He does in our lives, even allowing cancer in our young child, is for our highest good.


Please pray for Ava, her parents Josh and Lisa, and the entire Hunter family.