The Stone

     Yesterday afternoon, my dear brother held out his hand in Janie's hospital room and without saying a word, opened his fist to reveal two beautiful black and white rocks.  He didn't need to say a word.  We both knew and tears spilled down for both of us.  They were rocks from Cane River--our last family vacation just two weeks ago with all of my brothers and sisters and children.  A place in the mountains of North Carolina at the base of Mt. Mitchell where we all go once a year and stay in a big old log cabin and fish for trout and hike and sit around a battered huge table and eat huge dinners and laugh and talk.  For our family, there's just something about this place of God's unspoiled, wild beauty that binds our hearts together.  We all love it.
     And Janie loved it.  The last pictures she posted on facebook before her accident were from Cane River.  Thank You Lord for these joyful memories of fishing and hiking through those cold, clear streams filled with huge boulders and rocks and more rocks.  Every year, we all seem to bring home some rocks from Cane River--just a way to remind us of this place we share and love.
     At 3:30 this morning, as I lay in the room with Janie,  tears slide down my cheeks as I prayed for her healing and restoration.  In the darkness, God suddenly reminded me of my brother's rocks--we put them on a little ledge right in front of Janie's bed.  I pick one up and pray by her bedside and feel God speaking of stones being rolled away from tombs.  "Father," I whisper, "please roll away the stone for Janie.  Please free her from this grave that binds her and free her to glorify You."
     I sit down with the Word to read of stones and resurrection.  The stone rolled away from the tomb of our Savior.  But God leads me to an earlier resurrection--Lazarus in John 11.  Jesus' beloved friend is ill, and Lazarus' sisters send for Jesus, telling Him, "Lord, he whom you love is ill."  I continue to read the words I have read so many times but that are now crackling, electric to me: "But when Jesus heard it He said, 'This illness does not lead to death.  It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it." (John 11:4)
     That is what we have prayed all through our children's lives--that they would glorify Him, that we would bring Him glory.  Every single morning for as long as they've lived, we shout out as they leave the house, "Salt and light!  Make a difference!"  Is this how, Lord?  I know that after Janie returned from a mission trip to Africa this summer, she had shared with close friends that she wanted to truly make a difference for Christ this year.  O Lord, I know You are using her in so many lives right now for Your glory, and even in this hard, dark place, I praise You and thank You that her suffering, that our suffering is making an eternal difference.
     I read on. "Now Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus.  So when He heard that Lazarus was ill, He stayed two days longer in the place where He was." (John 11:5-6)  He loved them and so He stayed and allowed Lazarus to die before finally going to him--pain and suffering as evidence not of His disinterest but of His love because something greater and better was coming.
     He tells His disciples it is time to go to see Lazarus.  "Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I go to awaken him."  And so they travel to Bethany where Lazarus has now been dead in the tomb four days.  As I sit in this hospital room, I am also standing at the stone-covered tomb of Lazarus with His weeping and bewildered family and friends.  They are asking why Jesus would allow His friend to suffer and die.  They are wondering why He would delay and wait to come until it is too late.
     But they do not know the end of the story.  They do not know how the Lord Jesus uses delays and waiting and the stone-covered tombs of despair and failure and doubt in our lives and He redeems and transforms... and resurrects. His delays are not denials.  I read the words and the hospital walls disappear.  All I see is the tomb and the huge rock and the Savior speaking firmly to the weeping sister: "I am the resurrection and the life.  Whoever believes in Me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in Me, shall never die.  Do you believe this?" (John 11:25)
     Yes, Lord, I whisper through tears, I believe.  And I clutch Janie's Cane River rock and I pray for resurrection and for faith and for God's glory.
     And now we walk, the sisters, the mourners, the Lord Jesus, and I, we walk to the tomb. "It was a cave, and a stone lay against it.  Jesus said, 'Take away the stone.'"  And I pray for Janie--Father, take away the stone, in Your time, by Your grace, take it away and free her.
     The sisters protest, for Lazarus has been dead four days and there will be an odor. But "Jesus said to her, 'Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?"  Yes, Lord, we believe.  Lord, help our unbelief.
     Jesus prayed to His heavenly Father and "When He had said these things, He cried out with a loud voice, 'Lazarus, come out!'"  And a dead man, a man dead for four long days, walks out of his own abandoned tomb.  His hands and feet still bound with cloths, his face still wrapped with cloth, but Jesus commands them "Unbind him, and let him go." (v.44)
     We stare, those mourners and I, at resurrection, at freedom, at the glory of God revealed at a stone-covered tomb.  We worship a Lord who saves and loves and redeems... and a Savior who ultimately would willingly, lovingly go to His own stone-covered tomb to save us, to unbind us from the sin that enslaves us, to free us from those things that grip us like fear and pride and despair, and ultimately to resurrect us.
     How can we not worship such a Savior?
     Holding the stone, I praise and I pray in this hospital room turned sanctuary.  I pray for Janie--that in His perfect time, God would speak her name and command her "Janie, come out!" and free her to glorify Him to a watching world.  And I pray for a world Jesus died to save--that others would hear His voice and heed His call to come and believe and be saved... and be resurrected to abundant, eternal life.
     Thank You for the stone, Lord, and for removing those stones in our lives and giving us resurrection life with You forever.  Help us to be salt and light and to make a difference... to Your glory, Lord, to Your glory.
     To the Savior who removes stones, who restores, who resurrects, be all the glory.