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Lisa Silva prayed over her newborn while six doctors warned his heart might stop. A mother in 1 Samuel shows what becomes of a prayer once it's answered.
For this child I prayed; and Yahweh has given me my petition which I asked of him.
1 Samuel 1:27
Ocean Silva went to a kidney transplant seminar to take notes. His mother, Lisa, needed a kidney and wanted someone beside her who could write things down. Partway through, according to the family's fundraiser page, he raised his hand and said, "I am my mom's donor." So much for the notes. On October 21, at The Queen's Medical Center in Honolulu, he kept his word.
Queen's is the only transplant center in Hawaii, and the wait there for a kidney averages about three years. With a living donor, Lisa didn't have to sit out that wait. So Ocean, 21, an actor and singer in Boston, flew home. He took on his first major surgery in its place, with six to eight weeks of recovery and limits he'll carry for life. The next day he said from his hospital bed that he was in "a lot of pain," and that the kidney "worked immediately."
It wasn't the first time Lisa stood by his bed. At nine days old Ocean caught RSV, and by day 15 he was critical. She remembers six doctors standing over her baby, warning that his heart could stop. She prayed, "Please let my son live."
The Bible has a mother who prayed like that. Hannah begged God for years for a son. When Samuel finally came, she carried him back to the shrine at Shiloh and told the old priest Eli that this was the boy she had prayed for. Then she said the next thing.
1 Samuel 1:28Therefore also I have granted him to Yahweh. As long as he lives he is granted to Yahweh." He worshiped Yahweh there.
Hannah got what she asked for and didn't close her hand around it. The answer to her prayer was a boy, and a boy has a life of his own. So what happens to a prayer after it's answered? It grows up. It moves to Boston and learns to sing, and one day it comes home on its own.
Ocean has his own reading of this. "Mom, you fought for me to have life years ago," the family quotes him, "and I believe God kept me alive so one day I could save you." That's his testimony, and he's earned it, though it's no rule for other families: plenty of grown children who love their parents could never be donors. He calls the kidney "the least I could do," though nobody could have made him give it, which is why it counts as a gift.
Lisa asked for one thing, that her son would live. He did, and one day he raised his hand in a room full of strangers and handed part of that life back to her.