Be Careful What You Pray For

Harry A. Ironside, Bible teacher and long-time pastor of Moody Church in Chicago, tells a heartbreaking story in one on his books. While visiting a parishioner in her home, he heard a child crying from the other room. She asked Dr. Ironside if he would like to see her little girl.

When he entered the child’s bedroom, he saw her sitting in a highchair with her back to him, looking out a window. As he approached the little one to get a better view of her, he gasped because what he saw was a thirty-two year old woman in a five-year-old’s body. Her speech, actions, and aptitude were those of even a younger child.

The mother then told him of how the child had contracted a life-threatening disease those many years previous, and because of a mother’s love and the girl being her only child, she asked God to spare her. But the child only drew closer to death. She told Dr. Ironside she then prayed this prayer: “Lord, if you do not give my daughter back to me, I don’t know if I can continue to love and serve you.”

The mother then recounted how the child, that very evening, began to change for the better. Then, with tears streaming down her face, she said to her pastor, “Oh, how I wish that I had left the choice with God!”

“And he gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul.”