When I was in college, I had a friend who loved throwing her daddy’s name around. Daddy was a bigwig in the Nevada gaming industry, actually the vice president of a large casino. Whenever this friend and I walked into that casino, the first thing my friend said was, “I am Dave Dawson’s daughter.” Dave Dawson adored his little girl. Immediately out rolled the red carpet. Food and drink were on the house. If a show was in session, the front row seated us. The country crooner Johnny Lee, a popular singer at the time, kissed me at one of these concerts. Lee was the guy who sang Looking for Love in all the Wrong Places from that John Travolta-Debra Winger 80s movie: Urban Cowboy. Walking out into the audience to greet us, Johnny Lee said something along the lines of: “You girls are special, I can tell.” Then came the kiss.

I was nothing more than a twenty-one year old college girl, but I knew someone important and that made me important.

The right name does open doors, even in the spiritual realm. Especially in the spiritual realm.

A week ago in the middle of the night, I was on my knees beside the bed of our very sick little boy. Joey was on fire, fever flaming through his body, his eyes glassy and pleading with me, his mommy, to help him. The doctor thought maybe it was mono. I didn’t even know a five-year-old could come down with mono. The fierce duration of this illness frightened me. I’d been praying for Joey’s healing for over ten days, and he only seemed to get worse.

Ask anything in my name and it will be done for you, John 14:14. This scripture kept tumbling through my mind. It had been listed in one of my devotions just that morning. Now, at 3 a.m. there on my knees leaning my head on Joey’s mattress, I grabbed hold of this scripture with all my heart because I sensed this was the medicine that would heal my son.

Jesus was the name I was counting on. Jesus: a name above all names says the Bible. But before this name was going to help me, God and I needed to have a serious talk.

You see, we’d been over this before, me and God. Ask anything in my name wasn’t a new concept to me. I’d first heard it with my heart about ten years earlier. I say with my heart, because before that, I’d heard this verse read outloud in church while growing up, but it meant nothing to me really. Then, ten years ago, when I was a brand new born again Christian, I began surrounding myself with other real Christians. One of these Christians, a woman named Clara, had a sixteen-year-old grandson dying of cancer. Clara, with tears on her cheeks one day, said to me, “I don’t understand it. I’ve asked in His name that Jake would be healed, and still my grandson’s dying.”

Being a baby Christian, I had no idea what to say in response to Clara’s grief and confusion over this scripture not working for her. Now that I’m a decade old Christian, I’m still not sure what to say. I talked this over with God the other night beside Joey’s bed because Jake’s death continues to haunt me. He was a beautiful boy, a strapping, star high school athlete. I found out I was pregnant with John on the day Jake died. The memory remains oh so bittersweet. Never will I forget that morning the news of Jake’s death came. The cottonwoods growing in our backyard were in bloom and white little tuffs of fluff floated all around as I sat in the sunshine on our porch speaking on the phone with a broken Clara.

You must pray for my will to be done before you can ask in my name, it seemed I heard God say the other night as I asked Him why this promise did not come through for Clara with Jake.

God’s will is a hard thing to accept if it brings a terrible loss into your life as it did Clara’s. I certainly didn’t want to lose Joey, but I knew in that moment that I had to surrender my son to God. “He’s yours, Lord,” I prayed with tears running down my face. “Your kingdom come, your will be done. If you want to take Joey, take him.”

I pushed my pregnant self up into the chair beside Joey’s bed. He was asleep now, his hair damp with sweat, his cheeks still rosy from fever. I cried for awhile, then thought about the time I was so sick a few years ago when God used this same scripture to speak to me. During that season of my life I kept asking in the Lord’s name for healing, but the healing just wasn’t coming. Ask anything in my name, God seemed to be telling me, but each day when I did this, nothing happened. No healing came. Finally one morning sick as could be, I pulled a scripture card out of the little glass box I keep on my bathroom counter, and there it was, Ask anything in my name and it will be done for you. In anger, I threw that little scripture card across the room, then sunk down on the bathroom rug and wept.

“You ask in unbelief,” I heard God say while pressing my feverish cheek to the round, shaggy rug. The impression of that statement was so strong that I looked around the bathroom for Jesus himself.

I didn’t see the Lord standing beside the tub, but in that moment of truth, I agreed with Him.
Right there in the loo I repented of my unbelief and from that day forward, began to heal of that mysterious sickness I’d had for several months.

Sitting in the chair in Joey’s room in the wee hours of the morning last week, I confessed the unbelief blighting my heart. “Your will be done, Lord,” I repeated again, and then, “Forgive me for any lack of faith as I ask in your name for Joey’s healing.” A short while later, I went to bed. I slept for maybe an hour, then awoke with a start. My heart was hammering in my chest, that gallop of the Holy Spirit I immediately recognized.

“Ask in my name,” I heard the Lord repeat himself.

“For Joey’s healing?” I clarified.

“Yes, for healing.”

“In the name of Jesus heal Joey,” I said breathlessly, thanksgiving flooding my soul.

Each day since then Joey has improved. The fevers are finally gone. He’s back playing with his brothers, though he tires easily. I continue to pray over him, reminding myself as I do that above all, Joey is God’s little boy much more so than mine.