Can. Could. Might.

I was eight years old and kneeling on my bed in a nightgown when I asked Jesus into my heart. One minute, I was alone in my dark bedroom; the next, I wasn't. It might have been scary in the context of a different story, but this wasn't scary. My heart felt flooded, suddenly, with light.

At the outset of my Christian walk, God seemed really close. Close enough to be in the room. Close enough to be tucked behind the breastbone of an eight-year-old girl. But, over time, I don't know what happened: I started thinking of Him as God who parted the Red Sea.

He is God who parted the Red Sea, of course, but He's also God who goes with me. Sadly, for most of my life, it felt more like His eye was on me from a great distance than that He was beside, or within.

Only in recent years have I drawn close to God again. I feel Him in the room. I feel Him in my heart. I talk about Him all the time, and I talk to Him freely. He feels so near that, sometimes, I almost forget how large He looms. Yesterday, I looked up at the sky and all its clouds, and in awe, I thought: God made that! He's bigger than that!

God is trapped in neither my room nor my chest, and He's the same, today, as ever He was (Hebrews 13:8). He's still the God of miracles!

Someone explained to me, recently, that miracles no longer occur like they did, once: that God will heal miraculously through doctors, but not instantaneously in the way He used to, through Jesus's and the apostles' laying of hands. My stomach flip-flopped.

I came home and studied enough to know that--while I've never been Charismatic or Pentecostal per se--I stand among the Continuationists and not the Cessationists. Even though speaking in tongues, prophesying, and faith healing are outside my comfort zone, I would never be so bold as to suggest they don't occur legitimately in this age.

When God doesn't heal somebody, it's easiest, I think, to believe He won't heal anybody. Certainly, it would be easier for me to accept that He won't heal anybody than to believe He can and/or will heal some people in this age but has chosen--all these many times I've touched and prayed over my brother--not to heal my person.

But I believe the harder thing. I believe God can heal my brother in an instant, and I believe He could, and I believe He might. I don't know why He hasn't, and I've hurt deeply in recent years for this very reason. Still, no one can take it away from me: my belief that He can, and could, and might.

In the meantime, we work with a neurosurgeon.

"Have you seen him?" I asked my sister-in-law, today, nigh about 6:30.

"Oh, I'm with him, now," she said. "He's in and out."

At this point, my groggy darling heard her and asked for the phone. "Hi, Sis," he said. "I'm ok."

"A lot of people were praying, today," I told him.

"Yes," he said. "That's why I'm ok."

"That's why I'm ok, too," I said.

"Yes," he agreed, and I knew we were both thinking of that other time. "We serve an awesome God," he added. "We really do."

(That awesome God can. He very well could. And He just might yet.)

Jim and Charleigh, My Brother and Clementine. December.