The Power of Prayer
I had the wonderful opportunity, this morning, to share my Testimony at our school Chapel Service. The school I work at has a weekly Chapel Service (think of it as a mini-youth Church Service). Below is what I had written down (I paraphrased some of it in person, but it's still a powerful message). God did, and still can do miracles, and there is POWER in prayer!
God bless!
Andrew
For those that don’t know me, I am Mr McGuire, and I am one of the two IT staff here at the school. I also love being up the back, hiding away, doing my thing at the tech team desk while Chapel is on, or hiding away doing sound or multimedia for school events. Anyway, here are three things you might not know about me, before we get into the serious stuff:
- I can play the drums, obviously, and can also play just about any brass instrument except the Tuba.
- I play for an American Football team in a league here in Perth.
- Following on from the previous one, the staff learned this on the Staff Retreat, but I am a massive NFL fan! Go 49ers!
So now that you know a bit more about me, it’s time for some of the serious stuff. See, I have been thinking a lot about my testimony for a while, and if I said my life was easy because I was born into a Christian household, I would be lying. There have been ups and downs throughout my life. But I want to share with you all 2 moments in my life where God came through for me in a mighty way: the first is at my Birth, and the second is the lead-up to me joining HillSide. There are plenty more times where God has come through in a mighty and powerful way, but if I shared my full story from start to where I am right now, we could easily be here for most of the day.
So firstly, this story is about when I was born. I have entitled it “A miraculous birth”. But that’s not me naming it a “miraculous birth”. See, my parents and Grandparents have basically called me a “miracle baby” since I was born. My grandparents, before they passed away, and my parents, who are still around, have shared stories with me, and they all line up. When I was born, quite some time ago now, my Mum, Dad, and my grandparents (my Poppa and Nanna) were in the room. As I was in the process of coming into the world, there were some complications that, after a short time, the doctors resolved. In the process, they lost track of the time I was actually born and didn’t know what time to put on the paperwork. But my Poppa, who rarely spoke up, had looked at his watch the moment I was born, told the doctor the precise time; he said, “Andrew came into the world at 5:15 pm”. But the title of it being a “miraculous birth” isn’t because I was born; it actually starts after I was born.
See, I was born, praise God, but I was born with an extremely rare disease called “Hirschsprung's disease”. This disease affects only 0.01% to 0.02% of newborns. So that means if we had 10,000 people in this room, not only would it be super crowded and cramped, but there would be 1 single other person in the room who had the same disease as I had as a baby. That is how super rare it is. In fact, in talking to my Aunty and Uncle about sharing my testimony, they advised me that the Doctor had told the family that he was aware of only 1 other case as severe as my case. This disease causes a blockage in the intestines by attacking the muscles that help move stuff through your bowels, which then fail, leading to a blockage.
Due to this issue, I became quickly and easily malnourished, and that’s no fault of my parents. See, they would feed me, and moments later, I would be projectile vomiting that same food back up. You wouldn’t believe it, looking at me now. The doctors decided, with the approval of my parents, that I needed a stoma. Now, a stoma, if you’re unfamiliar, is where the doctors temporarily rewire you so that your business goes into a bag instead of where it usually goes. This allowed me to live an everyday life for some months whilst they continued to run tests and diagnostics on what exactly was wrong with me and how they could fix it.
Eventually, they figured out what was wrong, in that I had Hershprung's disease and the doctor, who was upfront and honest with my parents, said, “There is a procedure we can do, we’ve never done it before, so we will need to go overseas and learn it and if it’s okay with you guys, I could perform the surgery on little Andrew”. They went overseas to learn the procedure, then, after some time, came back and told my Parents. “I’ve learnt what I can do to help Andrew; however, I need to warn you, because he is so malnourished, there is no certainty he will make it through the procedure. But I will do my best for you”. Throughout all this time, even since the complications at my birth, my parents had a national and international prayer chain going with family, friends and even church folk from around the globe. There was a lot of prayer over me, and, you guessed it, I am here today! So I survived, albeit with my large bowel removed. That was the miracle! The miraculous birth. How powerful and amazing is our God?
Now the second story is about me coming to HillSide. See, something about me is that I have spent a long time in each job I have held. I have never left a job without a new job or a new plan ready to go. So, during Years 11 and 12 at High School, I completed a School-Based Traineeship, attending school 3 days a week and working 2 days a week in Government doing IT Support. Following this, once I had graduated, I spent roughly 9-10 years in the Government as an IT Support Officer and a Desktop Support Officer, which is the team that fixed the computer hardware in the business.
After 9-10 years, I was made redundant as they had outsourced my job. Before accepting the redundancy, I came up with a game plan and planned to study. So I accepted the redundancy and studied for 2 years at TAFE. Year 1, I studied my Cert 4 in IT Networking. The next year, I opted for a different approach and took my passion for coding to the next level. I studied for a year in a Diploma of Website Development. I went straight out of TAFE and worked for approximately 5 years in Website Development. If you hadn’t gathered yet, I am a bit of a computer nerd.
Two months before I started here at HillSide, I went into my job where I was building websites for a variety of people, and I was immediately met by the Owner, who wanted to meet with me before I got to my desk. Long story short, I was made redundant from my job. I was brought into the meeting room with all the blinds drawn, spoken to, and handed a letter stating that I was no longer needed at the company, effective immediately, and that I would receive a payout from the business. I was allowed to grab my personal belongings from my desk, and then went to my car and went home.
On the way home, I was very upset, and I’ll be honest, I even cried. This was the first time I had ever left a job without any form of a succession plan. I was extremely worried, even anxious, about the future. I called my Mum immediately to tell her, “I am on my way home now, I’ll explain when I get home”. I was feeling very down and upset, and felt like I needed to put on a strong face despite hurting so much. I got home, explained to Mum, phoned my Dad, and explained to him. Suddenly, around 3pm, my phone got a text (I heard the tone), and then someone called me. It was my brother. He said, “Andrew, I get you’re upset as you have only just lost your job, but I sent you through a job advertisement, I think you should have a read of it- it screams you. Oh, and by the way, you need to make a decision ASAP as it closes at 4:30pm today”. Then he sent me the job advertisement as a message along with, he said this, not me, “This is a really brilliant school. Charmaine (his wife) passed her toughest Prac here and the Principal Steve is a legend”. He said it, not me - I’ll show receipts later!
That call and text from my Brother was at around 3pm, and the job advertisement for HillSide closed at 4:30pm that same day. I reviewed the job, and it is asking for an IT, Marketing, and Media Support person who does everything you have seen me do here at the school. I read the job from top to bottom, and honestly, I had a check mark in each box while reading over it - it was like this job was written just for me. I even spent some time in prayer over the situation, saying, “God, if this be your will, may it be so, give me some sign whether you want me to be here or not”.
Obviously, I submitted my application, and after interviewing with Mr Lamont, Mr Olsen and Mr Tsokos, I am here today as the successful applicant. For me in my life, one door closed which was my old job, and another was opened which was HillSide, but in the middle of both doors the path was unclear. In the midst of any storm in life, the path is not always clear; you just have to step out in faith.
So why do I share this with you all today? It’s not to be like “hey, look at me and how amazing I am”. No, it’s because I believe in the power of not only sharing your story, your testimony, but also talking about the power of Prayer! I am living proof of the miracles our God can do. Be it my birth, which I shared about, or my time around joining HillSide, God was, and is still present.
Even in the darkest of lows when you feel like you can’t dip any further, God can come and pick you up from the slump! You just have to be ready to reach out and accept him.
Thank you for listening!
