Free The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven: A Remarkable Account of Miracles, Angels, and Life Beyond This World by Kevin Malarkey; Alex Malarkey Page A

hanging in the balance from day to day. It would be months before we saw all the groundwork God had already laid for the fulfillment of His purposes.
    The praying continued. Alex’s Army continued to wage battle, and new recruits joined the front line every day.
    Alex Online
    From the beginning, we wanted to get the word out so that people could pray for Alex. But how could we keep people updated so they would know specifically how to pray? Naturally, the Internet was the way to go. The hospital provided a link on its own Web site to CaringBridge, a nonprofit organization that provides free Web sites to connect family and friends during serious health situations. But for Alex, we wanted a place on the Web that was more personal and that would be designed to bring glory and honor to God.
    John Sullivan, a family friend, knew exactly what to do. John is a Web designer, and he took it upon himself to build a site called PrayforAlex.com. He registered the domain, got pictures from us, and put together a beautiful Web site that allowed people to stay up-to-the-minute on Alex’s ongoing story, leave messages for us, and encourage their friends to pray for Alex.
    When the site first went live, we had a section called Alex Updates, where we frequently provided new information. John was able to show us how thousands of people were beginning their day by logging on to our site, getting the news on Alex, and praying accordingly. The section for prayer requests was only about Alex’s needs in the beginning, but before long it became a clearinghouse for the needs of others, too. People would post requests, and “Alex’s Army” would take up their causes as well. Then there was a feedback feature on the site, which allowed people to communicate with our family. I remembered back to the year before the accident, when Alex and I had started the “Daddy and Alex Prayer Journal.” We’d write down prayer requests for others and ourselves and circle the request when we felt God had answered a prayer. Now we had what amounted to an online version of that journal—for Alex.
    PrayforAlex.com couldn’t have been a bigger success. It was accessed more than one million times during its first six months alone. Most of our family messages were read by one thousand visitors or more. We added a Global Prayer Group section that demonstrated, within just a few days, that our son had countless prayer partners all across the United States and, in a very short time, from around the world, including Australia, Hong Kong, Germany, South Africa, England, Iraq, Costa Rica, Canada, Afghanistan, and Honduras. The Alex’s Army prayer initiative had truly become an international movement. Many of these correspondents reported that their entire churches were praying for Alex.
    We began to hear stories of people waking up at the same time each night for weeks or months, feeling a strong leading of the Holy Spirit to pray for Alex. It was not uncommon to hear of twenty or more individuals, spread across the globe, all praying for Alex at the same time. Hearing these reports filled our hearts with the fresh wind of encouragement, revealing that God was up to something magnificent. Knowing that God was moving in the hearts of people everywhere made our hopes soar.
    The site had begun simply as a useful tool. What it became was a worldwide forum for God’s work, ministering to us as well as to people we’re likely never to know. It reminded us again that God’s work is not limited, isolated, or performed in some kind of spiritual vacuum. Everything He does is interconnected, so that when He blesses one person there is a ripple effect of blessings at large. The sad or tragic things, too, become raw material for the demonstration of His power.
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+ + + The question I get asked so much is, “Where is God, and how is God in the midst of suffering?” If you ever doubt God is there, remember this: He knew the pain we’d be assaulted with. He supplied His