The Prayer of Jabez

What I am going to share with you in this product review will be a bit unusual. I am going to share about my personal experience with this book and with the prayer of Jabez.

I can remember when I first read this book. My eldest daughter first read it about the same time. I said I can remember but I actually remember about when we read it.

I think someone may have given it to her for her birthday in February 2001. I may not have actually read it until March that year. I can't remember exactly when or how I got the book. What do I remember? I remember both she and I read it the year the doctors told us my grandson was going to die.

SPOILER ALERT: My grandson did not die. In fact, he says God gave him a new liver.

What the doctors actually told us is that my grandson would die without a liver transplant.

How do you pray in a situation like that? Do you ask God to take the life of another so that your child (or grandchild) can live?

We prayed for a miracle. From my spoiler alert above, you know we got one but you don't yet know how this relates to The Prayer of Jabez.

Well, the book and the prayer is just a small part of this wonderful story - a small and perhaps insignificant part but a part nonetheless.

My grandson was seven, almost eight, when a virus attacked his liver. His whole family had had a stomach virus. The others recovered. He turned yellow.

(Unrelated to this story but significant in my grandson's life, he has high-functioning autism. It doesn't have much to do with my story but it did make this whole experience extra traumatic for him - but God was with Him through-out the whole ordeal - God is with him to this day.)

Anyway, when did I get the book? When did I first read The Prayer Of Jabez? I don't know. I do know I had it at the hospital when my grandson lie in a bed in the pediatric intensive care unit at Baptist Integris Medical Center in Oklahoma City in March 2001.

I know life came to a screeching halt for our family that month. His mom and I stayed at that hospital the entire time he was in the PICU. His step-dad and an aunt stayed most of the time. We all put our jobs on hold. Other family members were there much of the time as well. One of his favorite teachers visited him and brought cards from his classmates.

We sat by his bed (or stood) in shifts. I guess that is one way in which his autism did play a role in the story. The rules for visiting hours were suspended for us. One of us was at his bedside almost non-stop.

I was a night-shift nurse in my normal life before this happened so I took the night shift with him.

I clearly remember the first night shift.

My grandson had been life-flighted to the Oklahoma City hospital. That first night, his mother and his father slept in recliners in his PICU room. I stood at his bedside and watched him and prayed. It was surreal.

By the time he got to that facility, his jaundice was so severe, it looked like someone had dusted his face with gold powder.

Time after time after time during the night, he quit breathing. The alarm would alert his nurse, she would come in, shake his leg and he would start breathing again.

At first, I would wait for the nurse to come in and rouse him but eventually I asked permission to do it myself.

Even though I was a nurse, I did not want to overstep my bounds. She did tell me it was okay for me to do what she had done and shake his leg to get him breathing again. The alarm still sounded and she handled resetting it but for the rest of the night, every time my grandson stopped breathing, I shook his leg as she had done and he started breathing again.

This has nothing to do with The Prayer of Jabez, it is just part of the back story to my experience with the book.

The next day, while I slept, my grandson was put on a ventilator. It was devastating to my daughter when they did that. It was a huge relief to me. I was glad for the machine to take over the task of keeping him breathing.

Okay, well fast-forward. They start doing plasmapheresis on my grandson. His condition improved to the point he could be taken off the ventilator and was able to breathe on his own but his liver was still failing and the doctors were still predicting the worse. The family was still at his bedside and this is where the book enters my part of the story. In fact, I may have bought it in the bookstore at the hospital.


I know I read it and told his mom about it. She had already read it. She even thought at the time there was a reason God has put the book in her hand before her son was taken so grievously ill. There were things that had happened that prepared us for this. One unusual thing that had happened that prepared this autistic child for what he was going to experience at this time, but that is a story for a different product review.

When I told my daughter about The Prayer Of Jabez, she told me she had already read it and felt as though God has had a reason for her to do so.

I began to read it to my grandson while he slept.

Now, my grandson, at this time, was lapsing in and out of a comatose state (if I remember correctly). I know he would seem himself right after the plasmapheresis but then his condition would deteriorate quickly as the toxins from his failing liver quickly built up again in his system.

The doctors wanted complete silence in his room. They talked to us about the affect of the high level of toxins on his brain and said it was important not to stimulate him. We complied somewhat and defied somewhat as well.

His uncle brought in a CD-player and some Christian CDs that had the scripture in song. We put the CD-player in the corner of his PICU room and played this music pretty much non-stop for the rest of his stay. To comply with the doctors request, we played it softly but we played it. Our belief was that the words were feeding his spirit.

We also read the Bible to him and prayed aloud for him. Again, we did all this softly but we did it.

An aside right here: One time when I was with his mom at his bedside and he was still intubated and hooked up to the ventilator, she was reading some scripture verses to him (and to herself as well). When she stopped and spoke to me, giving me an update and me giving her words of encouragement, my grandson would began to fidget and fight the tube in his mouth. My grandson was in a coma at this time, his eyes were closed, he was not actively communicating with us BUT when his mom stopped reading the Bible, he would begin to fidget and fight that tube. He could still hear her voice because she was talking but he changed his behavior. As soon as she started reading the Bible again, he would relax. He would stop fighting the tube in his mouth and it looked like his body just sort of melted into the bed.

Are you still reading? I hope so. I know this is not the norm for a product review and maybe someday this story will be a part of a separate item but, today, I am writing it here. I hope you will keep reading.

Now to the prayer of Jabez.

I read the book aloud at my grandson's bedside. I prayed the prayer of Jabez for me and for him. I put the words of the prayer on a sheet of paper in big bold letters and hung it on the bottom of the tv in his pediatric ICU room. I had him read it and encouraged him to pray it when he was lucid (and awake, of course).

He did. He probably had it memorized. I will have to ask him.

That's it. It doesn't sound like a lot, does it.

It may not have been. I know reading The Prayer Of Jabez at his bedside blessed me and blessed him. I know praying the prayer of Jabez at that time did likewise.

Did it do anything else? I don't know but it is intrinsically link with that life and death experience for both of us. Probably for his mom, too. I will have to find out about that as well.

That concludes this part of my story about this book but I have more. I will move to another section of this review form for the rest of the story...

I will say this: after twenty-one days in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Baptist Integris Medical Center and many times of plasmapheresis, my grandson fully recovered, contrary to what the doctors expected and predicted.

Again: he says Jesus have him a new liver.

I believe it!

The flip-side:

I continued reading and re-reading this book after we returned to our normal lives. I felt inspired by it.

I prayed the prayer of Jabez for myself many, many times.

The part I remember the most was about enlarging my territory.

I prayed this prayer and walked around the whole campus of the hospital where I worked as a nurse. I went back to school and finished my Bachelor of Science in Nursing degree. I expected God to bless me and my career at that hospital. Unfortunately, I made an enemy. I am not sure why but a nurse manner in a position of influence took a disliking to me. When I got my degree, she used her influence to force me to leave that particular branch of the hospital and transfer to the main campus.

I did not want to do that at the time but looking back, it certainly broadened my horizons as a nurse. I did not realize until this very moment, because of her actions, I ended up with a lot of good nursing experience and background I would not have gained at the smaller hospital.

And what became of the hospital on the grounds I had walked around and prayed while walking? The buildings are gone and it has been turned into a park. It has a walking path. I have never walked it but maybe I will soon and reminisce.

Still more:

The hospital was not the only place I walked and prayed. It wasn't the only place I looked to God to enlarge my territory.

I lived in a three bedroom townhouse in a townhouse community. When I first moved there, I became friends with the manager. He was a retired professor and a source of encouragement to me as I worked on my degree. After I graduated, he made me a member of the board there. It seemed as if my prayers were being answered.

And then there was a change. We were managed by a real estate management company. They decided to down-size. My friend and our maintenance man had their positions eliminated. They were replaced by one man who took on both roles.

As a member of our board, I welcomed this man and introduced him to the community. I interviewed him and created a flyer complete with his photo and had my grandchildren hang one on every door in the neighborhood.

I was ready to work with him to improve the community.

Alas, that was not to be. This man was not encouraging. He was not kind. He was mean. He was a bully.

I will not go into all the details here but I will say he took a disliking to me and forced me out of the community. I tried to fight him but eventually gave up.

The sad thing is (a sad thing, I am sure there was more than one), a sad thing was that after earning my BSN and working at the big hospital as an oncology nurse, I became physically disabled and unable to work. I had asked for disability but it took a long time for my application to be approved.

When this manager arrived, I had been without an income for over a year. By God's grace, I had been able to pay my rent all that time but I was running out of money and had no income. My rent was low and had I been allowed to stay, I suspect my grown children would have worked together to pay it for me until my disability money came through.

This mean man's actions meant we never got to the point of finding out.

My children, who might have been able to help financially, were not in a position to take me in. I ended up homeless for four months.

My youngest son and his wife did set up a place for me in their garage but when I attempted to get help with housing, I was told that if I stayed in their garage instead of going to a shelter, I would be ineligible for help. So, for years ago, I spent the holidays at a shelter for the homeless.

I was soon given a small apartment. It turned out to be a nightmare but that is another story.

Once I began to receive disability, I used the big check I received to buy a small RV and began another adventure.

What about the mean bully of a manager? He was caught embezzling funds and removed from the property. I understand, the new manager got a restraining order against him and he is not allowed on the property at all.

Will I continue to pray the prayer of Jabez?

Sigh... I don't know, but I will still recommend the book. I will put those words in yet another section of this product review.

SNEAK PEAK

Here is the prayer of Jabez:

Jabez cried out to the God of Israel, "Oh, that you would bless me and enlarge my territory! Let your hand be with me, and keep me from harm so that I will be free from pain." And God granted his request.

You can find this in the book of I Chronicles, in the fourth chapter. It is the tenth verse in that chapter. I have shared it here from The New International Version of the Bible.

I suggest you take a moment to pick up a Bible and read it in context. You will find the same suggestion in the book, I believe.

I do know Bruce Wilkerson wrote about the context where this verse is found. Why? Because it sticks it like the proverbial sore thumb.

You will find this very short story about Jabez surrounded by scads and scads of this one begat this one and that kind of thing. Before and after this prayer and a microscopic peek into the life off Jabez are lists of folks, a long genealogical list. Jabez is the only one singled out.

That in itself is worthy of notice.

Another point to note is that it tells us God in His glory and sovereignty and wisdom, GRANTED his request!


Bruce Wilkerson noticed this and it led him to join Jabez in this prayer. The results he experienced led him to write this book.

It is definitely worth YOUR time to read and consider what Wilkerson has to say on the matter.

I am ready to read this book again.

I focused on the "enlarge my territory" part. This time around,I want to focus on the pain part.

I can't remember if I read this in Wilkerson's book or elsewhere, but somewhere I read that because Jabez's name meant pain, he prayed not to cause pain versus not to experience it.

I would like both. I would like God to touch my life that I not be the source of unnecessary pain in the lives of others as well as not have so much pain in my own life.

Pain is a part of life, it cannot be avoided. In fact, trying to avoid pain generally brings even more. Pain sometimes brings with it benefits we might have otherwise missed so I don't ask to be pain-free Also, there are times we must say and do things that cause others pain. It can be something simple, like a nurse cleansing a wound. It can be something more ______ as well. Faithful are the wounds of a friend . Sometimes we need to cause pain to bring healing. I do pray that God would help me not to be the source of unnecessary pain.

The Prayer Of Jabez by Bruce Wilkerson prompted my prayers - and still does.

If you read this and have read this book, let me know.

If you have read all I have written here, please let me know whether you have read Wilkerson s book or not.

This product review was created Nov 28, 2014 at 10:08pm. It was the final two days of NanoWrimo 2014. I had decided to write reviews and product reviews for my Nano Rebel project that year but had fallen very far behind. The last two days of November, I used both Swype and voice-to-text in a mad attempt to catch up. I stopped writing reviews and focused solely on writing product reviews which I could go back and edit later. It took me over a year and a half to get around to doing that. I did win NanoWrimo 2014.

Interested in buying this? Support Writing.Com by making your purchase of The Prayer of Jabez: Breaking Through to the Blessed Life   from Amazon.Com!

Created Nov 28, 2014 at 10:08pm • Submit your own review...