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One of my many ministry positions over the years has been as an RCIA director. The first exercise I would have with candidates is to have them think about God's moments in their lives. It serves as a way to evaluate life moments where we don’t typically think to see where God is at work. It helps our faith life when we stop to reflect and identify them. Especially in the day-to-day. Many times, our prayers are answered in ways we could never imagine or thought we wanted.
We just need to be open and recognize that God was in the middle of the experience.
Last Friday was one of those times for me. I have a friend who had been struggling with cancer for the past year. We are part of a network of friends who met each other in Vancouver, Washington (on the Oregon border across from Portland). All of us were young adults, mostly in our 30s’ and several of us were new to the area. It is a friendship that has stood the test of time. While we have not seen each other in many years, we have stayed in touch. I have watched my friends raise children and celebrated their joys and sorrows from afar. And we still had our faith and friendship that keep us connected. Elizabeth has always been a great example of strong and unwavering faith. It’s good to have friends like her to keep us real.
Over the past several months, this small band of friends (along with a few I had not met) circled
Elizabeth and Paul to pray for her healing and the family. It was a regular practice that happened over Facetime and Zoom. While I could not always be on all the prayer calls because late west coast time did not work for a central time, I would take a moment to lift Elizabeth in prayer as I know she was doing for others. Over the last several weeks, it became clear she was losing the battle. The cancer was taking over. Her children and husband were spending as much time with her as they could. A small group of friends traveled to Vancouver to see her. She was surrounded by the people she loved dearly.
And God was there. We were all contacted by the great organizer, Tania, to come together wherever we were at 7 pm Pacific time to ask for the intercession of Blessed Carlos Acutis and Servant of God, Michelle Duppong. Both died from cancer and have petitioned for sainthood. We were to ask for their intercession for the healing miracle Elizabeth needed. It was a hopeful prayer. We agreed to gather at the same time the next day. As it turned out, she passed away peacefully in the night. Our prayers were not the healing we expected. There was a moment of lamentation. Asking why our prayer didn’t work. However, it did.
It was the healing that Elizabeth needed. Unknowingly, we prayed her to with the open arms of Jesus. It is what we prayed for. It was healing for her. We need to be ok with it, which is not easy to say. We recognize that God was with her that night in ways we never imagined. A total God moment.
I encourage you to pay attention to the God moments in your life. It’s especially important when there are struggles or prayers not answered in the way you expect. You might be surprised by what your find.
God Bless
Diane Zbaznik
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