SOMETIMES THE GIFT OF RESTORATION

Moaning slightly, painfully turning her weakened form, Laura pondered her illness, “For two long months, she had laid on this bed.” Frigid chills, sometimes, surged over her fragile body causing her to shiver and the high fever that invariably followed was exhausting. “Would she always be sick?”

That morning the village doctor had come to the house. After examining her, he spent at least one half hour talking to Mother. Afterwards, Laura observed her mother crying softly. “What had the doctor told Mother? Would she, Laura, ever get well?”

Outside, the low mooing of a cow broke the stillness of a hot summer day on the prairie. This was the time for ripening grain—the time just before the hustle of harvest but for now all was quiet on the flat prairie land. Somewhere on the farm, her father tended the fields. Elsewhere her younger brothers scrambled and played. “Dear God,” Laura prayed, “My father has become careless, please convert him. May my illness be a testimony to your goodness and may my father have a part in the miracle of my healing.”