Every child

Who would not absolutely melt over this adorable face? This is Daisy Love Merrick. She is five. She has cancer, and after vigorous therapies and the hope of remission, it has come back - in less than two months.

Daisy is the daughter of my minister from Carpinteria, Britt Merrick. Britt is so gifted by God; he and his wife and their friends started our church - which now numbers in the thousands and has founded other churches, from San Francisco to London. London!

So the irony is sharp, that such servants of God would be struck so harshly by this fate.

This is particularly poignant for me because Daisy Love has the same cancer that took my niece Brooke. With every surgery, every victory, every up, every down, I relive Brooke’s story; savoring the sweetness, suffering through the pain. And although I don’t really know Daisy Love, as a mother, I know that ache in the heart when your child suffers. The anguish is sharp, even among absolute strangers.

So I imagine now Abraham who at the age of 100, finally FINALLY has the son (with his 90 year old wife) God promised, when God calls him to Moriah saying, “Take now your son, your only son whom you love .. and offer him there as a burnt offering …” How his heart didn’t simply stop, I do not know.

And then you realize that Jesus, also, once was an adorable little boy - and his Father too had to lay him down ... The pain is inconceivable.

Abraham walked the path in faith, and in the end God was true to him. The Merricks too have faith of steel. They refuse to be destroyed. And they – and the entire extended family of church and community - pray zealously for Daisy Love; for joy and peace, strength and trust.

When Daisy Love’s relapse occurred (just after the family returned from vacation in Hawaii), she was hospitalized in a nearly catatonic state. For days she was unresponsive, fading, just a wisp of a girl at 36 lbs. Then she woke up. ‘Lively, spirited, and with a feverish appetite. Talking about her situation, she announced, “People are only one times important and God is like a thousand million billion googolplex important.”

Daisy Love’s scan this afternoon has miraculously shown that her new tumor – which was dangerously intertwined with major organs – has shrunk from the size of a grapefruit, to a sliver of tangerine: over 75%! It is hopeful that it can be removed now surgically – something that was impossible and improbably just two weeks ago. The power of prayer.

Psalm 22:5,24
To You they cried out and were delivered;
In You they trusted and were not disappointed.
For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted;
Nor has He hidden His face from him;
But when he cried to Him for help, He heard.

See the Pray For Daisy Love website here