KATHY GABLER—The toughest wilderness experience on record for me stretched out over five years of confusion and anger and ulcers. Before our daughter Melissa was born, I had prayed two specific things, that she would never have asthma or kidney trouble because both were bloodline issues. By the time she was eighteen months old, we were in Texas Children’s Hospital Houston because she’d had a bronchial asthmatic attack due to a severe kidney infection. After two weeks in two hospitals, we were facing kidney surgery.
Each night after I’d get her to sleep, I’d look out that tenth floor window. There were lights and noises and people filling the city, but I had never felt so alone. Marty was in Missouri in seminary and for the first time since I was nine, God was not there for me. I couldn’t figure out why He had abandoned me. I wanted to scream what David prayed in Ps. 83:1, “God be not silent and be not still”, but I just stood there, hurting, angry and confused.
The day before surgery I sat on the twenty-third floor waiting for Melissa to come out of nuclear X-ray when a sudden headache hit me between the eyes. I barely got her back to the room in time to throw up my toenails. I then laid down on the cot by her bed and closed my eyes. I felt a little hand on my head and heard a little voice say, “Jesus, heal my momma.” As her hand lifted, the headache left. I should have been grateful but that made me angrier.
My identity was gone because I felt abandoned, orphaned. My self-worth was shattered because there was no backing, no affirmation, no inheritance of healing within reach. I was disappointed enough to be angry and disregarded boundaries and self-government to be rebellious. Why follow the rules when you are no longer even in the game? My silent reaction to the sudden relief from the headache was far from grateful. Jaw locked, I demanded, “Why would You answer her prayer but not mine?”
It took five years for me to hear and acknowledge Father’s response to my question. “Kathy, Melissa prayed in faith, but you prayed in fear. You can’t take that fear where you are going. I had to let you confront and defeat what threatened you.” The thing most important to me was what God could do but didn’t. The most important thing to Him was His Original Intent for our lives. If that fear remained, it would cause road blocks to where both Melissa and I were born to go. Fear would be a contradiction to both our assignments. I was intent upon surviving the experience. Father was intent upon bringing us to glory. If we focus on self, glory is a problem. If we focus on Father, glory is a certainty.
Our Father’s Original Intent is Relationship with Mature Sons that reflect the image of Christ as they fulfill their life assignment and thereby share His Glory in their generation. Please be encouraged. Our faithful and patient Father will keep working with us and through us until we get this!
(SEEC PAK Meeting September 11-12,2026 with Marty and Melissa Gabler. Click on this link: martygabler.com/pak/ )
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