Week Three

The Power of Prayer
"Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know" (Jeremiah 33:3, NASB).

Estrella Sánchez, a pastor's wife in Cuba, remembers the day she found out she had a brain tumor. "I'm a Christian. I'm not afraid," she told her physician, a non-believer. "God can take away this tumor if He wants to. He made everything."
Her doctor laughed. But he gave this advice while Estrella waited for her surgery: "Call on God to see if He will help you."
"I'll call on God," she replied, "but not so much that He might heal me, but that you would be converted."
That day "God flooded me with a great peace," recalls Estrella, a young wife and mother. "I was resting in Him."
But her husband, Rasiel, was distraught at first. "I locked myself in the bathroom and cried," he says.
When he came out, he hugged Estrella. Together they knelt in prayer at their bedside. "I put my hand onher head and prayed, 'Lord, heal my wife.' We knew God was helping us. We prayed He would give us strength," he says.
It's been more than two years since that day, and Estrella is still battling a brain tumor. "I'm recovering for the glory of God, but recovery is very slow," she says. "I'm learning to trust in God and His promises."
In the process, she relies on prayer. "God says to me, 'Estrella, be strong. Strengthen those weak knees.'"
The prayers of others, at home and abroad, have been a big part of that strengthening. "Prayer is powerful," she says.
One day a Christian worker from the States told Estrella that a prayer network of more than 3,000 believers was praying for her. "That gave me great joy!" Estrella says. "To think that my name was before God with so many people praying for me. What a great blessing!"
Two months after that prayer chain began, Estrella's tumor began to shrink. She's still in the healing process, but "I am waiting on God," she says. "This is God's time, not mine."
"His presence is sufficient," Rasiel adds. "His power is enough."

Sunday, April 6 - Day 15
Thank God for the ways He has answered prayer for Estrella Sánchez (see above) as she recovers from a brain tumor. Pray for her continued healing. Pray God will be glorified through her and her family. Pray many Cubans, including her doctors, will come to saving faith in Jesus Christ through her testimony.