Julian is with Jesus...

Mar 11:23 For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.
Mar 11:24 Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.

This Scripture is true. I held on to this scripture for two years as it pertained to Julian and Wanda Holloway's situation. I loved Julian, and of course, that was one of the reasons that I wanted to see Julian healed of Lou Gherig's Disease [no medical cure for it]. But the main reason was that I wanted Jesus' name to be glorified. I was certainly aware of another verse:

1Jn 5:14 And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us:
1Jn 5:15 And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.

The error that I made was contextualizing these two verses, instead of seeing that both are absolutley, literally true in every case. Sure, God will do something only if it is his will. However, at the same time, "What things soever," means exactly, "What things soever." The obvious problem of reconciling these two passages was easily ignored by my logic that healing Julian HAD to be God's will.

Joh 14:13 And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
Joh 14:14 If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.

So it must glorify God? Yes this was infact going to glorify the Lord. It MUST be God's will to heal him. This was the confidence that I took. As others made comments that infuriated me; I believed that God was going to do more than just glorify his name. He was also going to vindicate his Word and prove to everyone that he means for his Word to be taken literally. Although God never told me that he would heal Julian [like he had told me my brother would preach..became reality about 3 months after the fact], I did feel the touch of the Spirit that I was praying correctly and in the right way. More confidence came. I had also deduced [NOT told by God] that logically Julian would have to be healed in the last possible moment to bring the most Glory to Jesus. As he got closer and closer to death, there was no reason for me to stop believing like everyone else [bar-my Mother and my friend Mary..they still believed]. I had already deduced that it would be in the last possible moment. Of course many people were still saying that God COULD heal him. To me, Mark 11 told me to believe that he WOULD heal him.

There was always doubt there. I truly believed that Julian would be healed, but to say that I believed with absolutly NO DOUBT would be disingenuous. The doubt was always there. MOM too. No matter how much I tried to ignore it, take it captive and press into faith; the doubt was still there. Could I have fasted more? prayed more? Maybe. The fact is that faith comes from God. Julian died because the people praying for him doubted. Does that mean there is blame or fault to be assigned? NO. It wasn't God's will to heal Julian. In that respect, my Dad was right and everyone else for that matter. But to say that God will simply not heal someone if it isn't his will to do so NO MATTER how much faith one has who is praying- is just a fallacy. One must deny Mark 11, or at least believe that it shouldn't be taken literally. Both are true. Julian died because it was God's will for him to do so. Julian died because I doubted that God would heal him.

Faith is something we have to be enabled to have. Jesus wanted Julian with him; so he didn't remove my doubt like I had begged him to. In the Old Testament, many chapters begin with phrases such as, "The Word of God came to Isaiah the son of Amoz," "the Word of God came to Elijah the prophet," or, "the Word of God came to Jeremiah the prophet." The Bible tells us that:

Rom 10:17 So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.

The Word of God MUST come to someone to enable them to have the kind of faith mentioned in Mark 11. The Word didn't come to me. There was never an instance when God said,"JOhn, I will heal Julian physically." These prophets had faith because God had already told them what he was going to do. example:

1Ki 18:36 And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice, that Elijah the prophet came near, and said, LORD God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known this day that thou art God in Israel, and that I am thy servant, and that I have done all these things at thy word.

Elijah had confidence when he challenged the prophets of BAAL because the Word had come to him. God commanded him to do these things.

THE AFTERMATH:

Why didn't God glorify his name? He chooses when and where and how he will glorify himself. My friend went through a sort of paraphrase of the book of Revelation on the phone where she reminded me that the day would come when he would glorify himself and vindicate his Word. He will in that day; but I did pray specifically that the Lord would glorify himself, and he did. Julian, like Job, "trust[ed] in him though he slay me." He glorified himself in Julian. Julian never charged God foolishly in all this. He followed Jesus. The fruit of his suffering brought his son Audey back the Lord. He had been out of Church and God's will for some time. He asked God for forgiveness in Julian's room before Julian died. Unbelievable!

Before I knew that, I sort of felt like that guy with the pet frog on that one BUGS BUNNY episode. Everytime he was alone with his frog that frog would put on that top-hat and cane and would sing and dance...something like "hello my baby, hello my darling, hello my rag-time Gal!"...remember? but when he tried to show it to other people, it would just sit there and go "crooooaaaaak!"

God's Word was proven true.

God chooses when, where and how he will glorify himself.