I often talk about miracles when I talk about my Gianna! Her life was full and brimming over with many mighty miracles that were not explainable by human explanations. We got front row seats to GOD’S incredible power and we held those miracles in our hands. Oh, how I miss squishing on my beautiful sweet miracle girl. To think of all we could have missed had we not answered the beautiful invitation to be HERS forever. It humbles us.
We would have missed the beautiful miracle of sight….we got to see and feel earthly healing and literal “death to life” moments. WE GOT TO SEE HIS POWER in her life. Her life was a living breathing testimony to HIS POWER. Her earthly life showed us just how BIG and able God is. Nothing celebrates God’s faithfulness more than when you can hold a miracle in your hands and see and touch it. Oh what a testimony of pure sight we had!
But, what happens when the lights go out….when the sight leaves??? When your hope is ripped from your arms?
When your testimony is no more.
When the prayer is not answered…
When praise is overshadowed with so much pain? When worship turns to wailing.
Is He still working, and is he even faithful and can God be trusted?
Did HE FAIL??
What happens when you are struck with blindness.
When the lights go out….When the miracle seemed to fail? When the touch did not seem to work…
When you can not see clearly?
You basically find that There is no comfort found in this earth, everywhere you look speaks loss… except in the word of God.
I mentioned in my last blog that I was purging from social media and this commitment has been refreshing and needed and has brought some desperate white space to my life and enabled me to hunger ever more for the bread of life that is the only comfort in such unutterable pain.
…I told you of my fascination with miracles.
Well, recently I have truly been rocked by a specific miracle in the book of Mark. It speaks so much truth and light and hope into my soul.
The miracle of the Second Touch
I am fascinated and moved by the biblical account of the healing of the blind man in the book of Mark (Mark 8:22-26). Have you read it? Go read it real quick! It is short but packed with so much punch.
I will give you a quick “non-theologian- regular person” summary. So, there was this man in Bethsaida who was blind and some people rushed him to Jesus to beg HIM for a miracle. Then (and I just love this) Jesus took him by the hand and led him out of the village to be alone with him. Our Jesus is so intimate….
ok….then check out what He did:
He then spit in his eyes!!
huh? Saliva??…well that is just strange, Jesus?
Why did he spit on his eyes and rub saliva on them? Couldnt He have just touched them? I had to dig more to figure out why Jesus would have done this. I know Jesus does everything for a special reason. I love what I discovered.
Most commentators agree that the warmth of Jesus’ saliva would have soothed the man’s pain. As we will see in the following verses, the blind man knew the difference between people and trees. That fact he was able to make this distinction allows us to safely assume that he had seen previously and was not born blind. Therefore, something may have caused him to go blind leaving open wounds on his eyes. Saliva may have simply been another act of compassion from Christ. (Weidmann)
So this man was not just blind but was in actual pain!
Jesus’ warm saliva must have acted as a balm of sorts to his wounds. Jesus was extending love and compassion. This action for the blind man may have helped him begin to have a faith that Jesus could actually heal him because he felt the care of this miracle worker. He felt His intimate and affectionate love.
We all need to feel his care, don’t we. We need to feel the balm of his promises as he touches our gaping wounds. We need to KNOW He sees our pain and brokenness.
and you know what? He does see all our pain. He sees us.
and then HE laid hands on him and touched him and asked if he could see…..the mans response:
“I see people; they look like trees walking around.”
hmmmm? At first it seems like this miracle just did not work too well, His touch is not working? hello???
Oh man can I relate!!
So Many dark days in the hospital when I felt like all the doctors were as good as walking trees and did not know what to the heck to do with my failing baby girl!!! SO frustrating! Disappointments tucked between so many unfinished miracles.
How many times did Jesus touch Gianna in the hospital and do something that felt just 1/2 way. We would feel this powerful touch and then be so disoriented and confused by what remained so very “untouched”….
For some reason this man was requiring a second touch. He was still unable to see clearly. Some scholars believe this was Jesus’ way of growing his faith. They call it a progressive miracle. THIS really struck me in the heart.
LIKE SLAM!!!!
It was those three weeks in the hospital of what felt like incomplete miracles that Jesus whisked us away from our village and was drawing me and Brian ever closer to HIS feet and to HIS HEART in absolute desperation. He was growing our HOPE by leaps and bounds with each touch. HE WAS causing us to believe that with every miraculous touch, HE WOULD TOUCH HER AGAIN. He was growing our anticipation of the power that would be displayed in front of us. HE was showing the world what HE could do!
It is not that Jesus’ miracle did not work on this blind man at first….and that he suddenly needed a plan B! Not at all, In reality it is that He loved this man SO much that he was not just interested in only healing him but he wanted his heart too, he wanted to grow his faith.
He had a predetermined and calculated way of performing HIS act of love because of HIS great love for him
the progressive miracle had so much purpose.
Once more Jesus put his hands on the man’s eyes.
Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored,
and he saw everything clearly.
Did you see that!! HE SAW EVERYTHING CLEARLY. WOW! Jesus was not done until this man would see everything clearly….he was giving him more than sight.
He was restoring and growing his faith.
…Within this verse the final saving touch of our Savior is captured. The compassion of the divine God was expressed through the fingertips of Jesus as he touched the man a second time. The blind man, most likely already filled with excitement because he could at least see something after the first touch, may have thought that the miracle was over. However, Jesus being perfect was only satisfied with perfection and completion. Jesus was not tied to a system or method for all of his miracles. Being in the very nature of God, He was free to do according to His will whatever pleased Him. In this situation, His desire was to grow the man’s faith. We notice that it does not say the man could see “just all right” or “partially” after the second touch. Rather, it states that his sight was restored and “he saw everything clearly.” Jesus was truly the “author and perfector of faith” (Hebrews 12:3) for this man. (Weidmann)
I think to myself, wait….I had sight.
My eyes worked great for many years. Or so I thought so. I was seeing GOD IN ALL HIS FAITHFULNESS…I was HIGH on earthly miracles!
My Faith had literal sight ….I had sight of GOD’S power for many years when He was delivering our baby girl from the hands of death and saving her many times over. We saw HIS power up close. There was no doubting. I was in awe of His visible mercy! These miracles made me a woman of HOPE.
But then the lights went out.
She had a heart attack.
My baby girl was dying in front of our eyes.
I became blind….. stumbling along in a fuzz. Hope was fading.
Jesus was not giving sight any longer. I needed HIS MIRACLES.
We were carried to the Father by our village…..Many incredible prayer warriors intervened on our behalf and BEGGED GOD for a miracle.
He took us to be alone in a desert for three weeks with Him in Boston while He began a series of progressive Miracles on “ALL” of us.
We felt the intimacy of God like never before.
In those three weeks of blindness and utter confusion and unclear sight we clung to the Father. We DARED to HOPE in a God who can do the impossible!
He took us to Holy Ground, to the throne room away from the village and He touched Gianna …He touched us. We saw miracles unfolding. But it was not clear yet. Man looked like trees walking. Such disorientation. Such holding of a bated breath!!
We could not fully see the other side through the pain and tears. We could not fully see the splitting of the red sea. We knew the other side was there though and we believed! It was painful, but GOD WAS GROWING our faith as He soothed our heart and fears with each touch. I believed with everything in me that HE WAS ABLE. We prayed in this faith and gripped HIS hands so tightly for Him to break her chains. I knew He would get us to the other side.
But….
We did not get what we asked for.
So, in our great wrestling and leaning in, we are starting to understand more and more each day of what we Did get….we DID get a gift like no other. We got to see a TRUE SECOND TOUCH from Jesus. Of course, in our small feeble minds, nothing will ever compare right now to getting to have a healed Gianna in our arms right now.
But, We witnessed the second powerful touch of Jesus on our baby. She was healed in a way that those incredibly smart “man-trees” could never heal her in the hospital.
her SUNDAY came!
Gianna got what we all want, her heavenly prize. SHE GOT HER SIGHT. Oh to imagine what her eyes behold on the shores of eternity right at this very moment! I know she is screaming, “It is all true mama, just hold on!!!”
and I groan in response to this….because I wanted something different
… because here we are left behind….still watching the progressive miracles unfold while Jesus soothes our painful wounds. He is still touching us, still working…but I must be patient and patience has NEVER been my gift.
All creation groans for that “second touch”
I often say Gianna’s miracles go on forever.
It is true.
and now, I am that 1/2 blind man who is stuck in the waiting room, in the middle of an undone miracle.
I am still getting my wounds nursed by His hands and he Is applying the balm of HIS promises to ease the pain and slow the bleeding of my open wounds.
I ache to hold my baby and kiss her soft warm cheeks. I am frustrated at this undone miracle….I am groaning. God knows my broken heart.
I moan and I wait for THE UNDONE miracle to be completed. I await the heavenly prize of SIGHT… of a reunion with our baby!!!! When he makes all things new.
but in the mean time He is carrying us and all our brokenness. He is growing our faith and teaching us that HE IS STILL FAITHFUL even when the first touch is not what we had hoped for and When it appears the first touch just did NOT WORK.
He is still good, not based on my feelings but HE IS GOOD because I know Death does not win. Our Hope lives on.
He has us in this waiting room. But we did get a glimpse forward….so, we know what is coming.
When Gianna went to heaven we got to peek beyond the veil and down the gold streets to our future hope.
OH SUCH GLORY!!!
We were given a glimpse to the FULL miracle… the sheer witnessing of the second touch brought a peace that transcends all understanding. We felt the angels worshiping and beaming with us at her great homecoming! She got her second touch….FULLY HEALED
and she can FULLY SEE….. WOW!
22 To this day we are aware of the universal agony and groaning of creation, as if it were in the contractions of labor for childbirth. 23 And it’s not just creation. We who have already experienced the firstfruits of the Spirit[a] also inwardly groan as we passionately long to experience our full status as God’s sons and daughters—including our physical bodies being transformed. 24 For this is the hope of our salvation. (romans 8:22-24)
But THIS Hope means that we must trust and wait for what is still unseen. That still hurts That is what is SO hard! Because we wait with such ache. But, why would we need to hope for something we already have? Gianna has taught us what A TRUE HOPE IN A LIVING GOD REALLY MEANS FOR OUR LIFE as we wait in the space of Saturday.
he is growing my familys faith in a Miracle THAT DOES NOT DISAPPOINT and at a slow pace, He is rocking our worlds in unbelievable ways as we painfully walk forward without Gianna but towards Gianna. A space of mind that is unimaginable unless you have walked it.
We were blind but now we see in a different way…this overwhelming pain and slaying has stripped us of all the tangible imperfect faith we used to cling so desperately to. We were sight lovers…and we will always be because lets face it, WE LOVE EARTHLY MIRACLES! But, now …now We are desperate beyond all imagination for a faith and truth that is unseen.
We are humbled by the witness of a second touch on our sweet beautiful and brave Gia-Bia.
I feel much like Job when he said in JOb 42:5:
“My ears had heard of you
but now my eyes have seen you”
But, make no mistake…. the sight does not make the pain go away. The waves still crash hard with no mercy as we remember and desperately miss her.
However, in our deepest depths of pure brokenness and hurt, we see around the fuzz like never before…we see the power and hope of the second touch “that is coming”.
….and here we are Almost 6 months of living without her. How is this possible?
6 months Of waking up without her safely tucked under my arm
6 mounts of God needing to consistently nurse our wounds with HIS loving warm balm.
6 months of leaning into a LIVING HOPE because we NOW desperately need it like never before.
6 months of learning about a different Jesus we had never known or seen before, the Jesus who is so very acquainted with all our sorrows.
6 months of having to settle for sleeping with her pink worn winter coat tucked in a ball under my arms instead of her soft silky skin touching mine. Oh how I miss and ache for her touch.
I grip tightly to her coat because I can not hold her and I hate that.
Her favorite fuchsia coat, the one with the fuzzy stars that decorate the inside soft lining. When I hold her coat, I hold so many memories. Those same stars, which brushed up so closely to her silky soft skin and felt the warm chewing -gum breath of her mouth and swept so closely to her broken brave heart. Those tiny details inside her coat that never really made me pause or think twice when she filled her coat with all her enthusiasm of life. I did not notice them. I suppose those fuzzy stars just danced with her in her coat and went on joyous adventures with us around the farm playing with all her animals and diving into the snow all the while going so unnoticed. Those fuzzy stars became lost in all the brilliant light of such a joy-filled season of life….just blending into the background of such tangible miraculous joy that was so clearly seen right before my eyes and held in my arms.
But I see those stars inside her coat now. They are so painfully obvious.
now those stars in her coat just lie still and stare at me each night as I fill them with falling tears…..they seem to ache and miss their adventure-seeking Gia-Bia too. Somehow, their shape is more defined to me now….I notice them, their various sizes and the sheer number of them. So many stars that went along on our fun cold-weather journeys.
There lays the shell of a coat that used to embrace so much bubbly and whimsical life ….now just bored stars, a limp shell that lays flat on my bed with the posture of a waiting spirit that I have come to recognize in myself .
These Fuzzy stars seem to mirror the stars above me in the dark sky. They seem to be groaning with me for a miracle still unfolding before me…. and yet they seem to hold a quiet still confidence.
Like they “KNOW” more than me.
The stars in heaven hold the secrets.
They were there among the angels when our brave warrior was brought up to Heaven,…. They witnessed the TRUE second touch too and beyond.
Those stars in her coat hold such a reminder.
This coat, these fuzzy stars.. which embraced my wiggly free spirited Gianna now lie still and remind me to seek GODS heavenly lanterns in this darkness. Even as we crawl forward through the darkness…..they remind us to be STILL and know who holds the victory of the second touch.
The same tiny white cotton stars that just faded into the background of my old life and all its true tangible happiness, are now brilliantly bursting into the foreground of this wilderness- life. There, under my arm….each morning and night to declare their message of HOPE.
I really did not notice them too much before, but now…. Every night they stare at me with the same question:
Will you look up?
Will You cling to what you see or to what you do not see?….
and Each morning they wake me with the same question:
“will YOU choose the LIVING HOPE?”
…I “see” an empty coat lying next to me.
Yet They speak to me of the power of an “empty tomb.”
I often feel like a Saturday walker who does not see my Sunday yet so clearly…stuck in an unfinished fuzzy miracle just like those disciples on those terrible post death dark days before the grand miracle
…..that day tucked delicately between DEATH and resurrection…
…after the tragedy…. YET before the miracle
The couple days that must have felt like 1000 years, when the disciples walked around absolutely devastated and completely in despair and agony over seeing their precious friend, teacher, Messiah and Promised King bloody and SLAUGHTERED on a cross and then dead in a grave.
WHAT JUST HAPPENED and HOW did this happen!!!?? Earthly sight sees what looks like a failure of HIS faithfulness.
It appeared HOPELESS
I understand this too well…..
How could our baby girl not have been healed on earth? How could He fail us?
But, Then their Sunday came….oh GLORIOUS SUNDAY! That victorious morning that sealed a promise. A dead body that started to breath again and walk and talk and declare victory over the chains of death.
JESUS resurrected.
And now OUR LIVING HOPE.
Hope
Lord, we believe. Please Help our unbelief!
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God has great mercy, and because of his mercy he gave us a new life. This new life brings us a living hope through Jesus Christ’s resurrection from death. 4 Now we wait to receive the blessings God has for his children. These blessings are kept for you in heaven. They cannot be ruined or be destroyed or lose their beauty. (1 Peter1:3-9 )
I thought I knew HOPE
We use the word HOPE so much. We hope for good weather, we hope for pay raises, we hope for happiness, we hope for success, we hope for good test results, we hope for cures and we hope for successful operations, and we hope for pleasing circumstances. We hope for a heart that will stay stable and for more memories to be made with the ones we love so much. We hope for lives saved. We hoped for a daughter who will wake up, be healed and dance out of the hospital with her family and rejoice in an answered prayer of GOD’S FAITHFULNESS once again …
This hope keeps us pressing on, does it not? But, all this hoping has no sure outcome on earth? My story showed that the worst can still happen even when you faithfully believe! We are surrendered to a higher will that we do not understand…not until heaven. This hoping is a desperate ache for what we think is good in our own eyes…an ache and a wish, a BOLD brave prayer and a dream and a determined goal with no promise or guarantee. It may or may not happen because we are not promised an easy life with every story working to our comfort
We are actually promised a hard life of suffering. We still live in a broken world that exists in the Saturday of a progressive miracle and we do not yet SEE the full victory of yet. So, we pray and we ache for an earthly outcome that feels good, and victorious but we do so knowing that ultimately we do not know if it will or won’t happen. We do not know God’s will but we pray for His will to be done on earth as it is in Heaven. It can be daunting to trust HIM and scary…and it can hurt so terribly when it does not happen like it SHOULD!
I experienced what it meant to HOPE so much for something and NOT get it. What a crushing hard blow and gut punch !!!!
BUT this does not happen with a LIVING HOPE. A living HOPE is what makes everything we go through absolutley worth it. We HOPE and DREAM BIG and LIVE in an EXTRAVAGANT RISK because of a greater HOPE!
I have been digging deep into what it means to have a LIVING HOPE.
It is blowing my mind…See, I know earthly HOPE…I was the biggest advocate for HOPE. I still am! This HOPE is important and brings light to the world.
He tells us to HOPE because HE IS HOPE. He teaches us to press on and believe in a GOD WHO IS ABLE to do the impossible. That is what Gianna taught us. I will never stop living in belief of a God who can move mountains on earth, because that is how I am created to pray. Hope is worth any risk.
But, we did not receive what I desperately HOPED for….even after so much faith and persistent prayer.
I am beyond disappointed ….completely wrecked. And we would be lying if we did not tell you that we feel very betrayed in many ways sometimes.
But despite feelings, I know truth. Truth says He is not done.
My Living Hope was always a background to my earthly hope. Because I was not so desperate for it. Now I am so desperate.
We are still living in the Saturday of the first touch. Everything is fuzzy and men still look like trees walking. But HE is speaking truth and growing my faith like never before and giving us an excitement and a hope within the crushing pain as He soothes our wounds with promises that do not disappoint.
Jesus teaches about a more stable and unwavering HOPE…
a Living HOPE….that I KNOW I WILL RECEIVE. He is NOT done. The second touch is coming when I will see so clearly with no brokenness or pain to mess it all up. He will make all things right.
I will hold my baby again.
He is making all things new. He will restore this broken world and all our broken bodies for those who Trust in His salvation.
Gianna gave us a gift and taught us about the power of risking HOPE in her earthly life and she now teaches us about the power of a LIVING HOPE in her death and in her forever eternal life!
…she teaches us what it means to cling and keep our eyes fixed to a LIVING HOPE even when dreams crash and earth breaks us to pieces. Even when it feels so NOT GOOD!!!!
THIS is an incredible gift from my beloved sassy and sweet and sensitive tiny daughter. I know she is continually sending me reminders through the veil that separates us. The tiniest missionary who ever lived! She screams to me, it is SO GOOD, mama!!! This is A gift that changes everything.
her life SHINES brilliantly of a HOPE that never disappoints. The one that KNOWS SUNDAY IS COMING….The second incredible touch is COMING!!!
Her eyes now see fully. I am so jealous and happy for her!
Her chains broken forever!
Oh that incredible Sunday when JESUS arrested death! Death’s chains were broken forever. That is why my baby girl lives. Because our HOPE is based on the truth that JESUS overcame death and HELL to save us. She trusted in her Savior to save. Though we wait on this earth and groan…we do so in confident anticipation of what we KNOW WILL happen, based on a living GOD who won. this is not just a desire, it is a truth. A LIVING HOPE. Based on a LIVING GOD!
Now this truth does not make the pain and ache go away. Not at all.
The gaping Gianna hole will be there always, till heaven.
We will hurt forever.
This hurt will bring us closer to His heart in a way like never before. This truth has the power to makes us dance and grow within our grief. This truth is why Joy and pain can so easily co-exist together now in a way like never before. This truth does not fix pain, but is a balm to my weary soul.
This is a HOPE that does not waiver and that does not shake even in our utter brokenness. Our HOPE will happen.
I DARE TO HOPE on this earth because I KNOW of a LIVING HOPE That will happen!
We will be reunited with our baby girl on the shores of eternity. IT WILL happen. I ache for a story that I already know the ending to. I moan for my treasure in heaven that was gained through hope ….The chapter is already written even if I do not know what the “in-between chapters” hold. I know that last victorious chapter. And it is called JESUS WINS and DEATH LOSES!
Take that SATAN! You are a loser!
HEAVEN holds PERFECT GOODNESS forever! Then from there, the story will go on with perfection filling every page forevermore.
It is the LIVING HOPE that saves when everything else fails us, even when our earthly understanding of what a faithful God is fails us because we have truth to turn to.
A living HOPE says God is still faithful and STILL GOOD EVEN when the miracle did not come and when earth hurts so terribly bad!
Even when disease steals and doctors can not save our loved ones and everything that is tangibly precious is ripped from our arms and we are left crushed and crying in a fetal position on the floor, with gaping wounds that bleed profusely.
A living HOPE saves us from the pit of despair.
A hope that says to fix our eyes on what is UNSEEN, for what is seen in temporary, A LIVING HOPE that says This is not our HOME and goodness awaits us.
HE IS COMING.
A living HOPE that says the sun will rise on Sunday and it will never set again. Light will overcome darkness forever.
A hope that say HE IS STILL FAITHFUL!
HE WINS.
My sweet sweet Gianna Lilyfaith, thank you for these gems that remind us all of the progressive miracle that will NOT disappoint.
HE IS NOT DONE.
there is this pain filled waiting room that we pace around in….but amidst the ache we will continue to walk in hope and still see miracles unfold on this earth in these “stuck in the middle” chapters …these gifts in the darkness will serve as glimpses as we await the Most INCREDIBLE second touch ever. Our eyes and hearts will stay open for the unfinished story.
That final miracle for us all that our baby girl already got the honor to experience:
THE MIRACLE OF REDEMPTION
….So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Cor 4:18)
I will be the first to tell you, This in between season SUCKS and I hate it …this Saturday living can feel so disorienting and painful. …Like I am living on another planet where the people seriously DO look like trees walking.
I know this is not my home.
We choose to keep dropping anchor in a HOPE that does not waiver. I have to cling to what We can not see fully yet. And we keep our eyes open so we do not miss the miraculous glimpses still being revealed in these earthly chapters.
There is still so much goodness ahead!
Gianna Lilyfaith,
We miss you so much that there are moments when we can not even breathe as we deeply ache for your touch again. Our world is missing so much color without you in it on this earth, running and playing and giggling BIG.
You are such a forever treasure……
Your life, Gia-Bia, shines the truth ….the anticipation of a LIVING HOPE
….This LIVING HOPE is what will make these in-between chapters and all its FUZZ and risk worth living for.
The gift of a Living Hope humbles us and presses us on to run (or crawl) forward and win the prize that is promised, the prize that you get to hold already, our beautiful baby girl!
In honor of you, and having witnessed the beautiful second touch on your life, We will live BOLDLY and bravely and with open Hearts and never stop risking earthly hope because we know that we rest on a LIVING HOPE that never fails!
As we walk in the “Saturday,” we will reach and pray and believe HARD for more miracles that reflect the glimpses of the greatest miracle that is coming….
………..Peace be still my soul…..I am eagerly awaiting the second touch!!!!
We love you our Gia-Bia!
