Encouraged to Pray

I find it amazing how God looks after little details for His children, and how His doing so is an encouragement to ask for bigger and better things.

The other day I drove myself and my eldest son, Nathanael, to the gym and skateboard park. Nathanael had his BMX bike with him for doing tricks at the skate park. Instead of working out in the gym, I decided to do a few laps around the outdoor track. When I was finished, I wandered over to watch Nathanael take some jumps. He did a spectacular 360 out of the bowl and then tragedy struck: he landed wrong on his foot and toppled over. I could tell something was up by the way he got up and wouldn't put any weight on his foot. He rode his bike over to me, pushing with the one good foot.

"What's up?" I asked.

"I think I broke something. I heard it snap and it really hurts!" he replied.

I helped him over to the car, and then drove to the health food store and bought some arnica homeopathic pills and then bought some ice at the 7 Eleven. From there we proceeded to the emergency department at the local hospital to be met with a full waiting room. Nathanael hopped to a chair after giving his name and we sat down to read the signs that said that the hospital was full and if people needed admitting, they would likely end up in a different hospital out of town. We also were informed that we had at least a 3 hour wait ahead of us before he could be seen.

"Oh great!" I thought, considering the fact that I had left son Ben (aged 15) in charge of his younger siblings, including 1 year old Princess Punkadunk. I called to apprise them of the current state of things and then sat and wondered what I should do. A few moments reflection led me to call my second daughter and ask that they consider going out to the house to stay with the kids until I could get home.

I guess Nathanael's foot looked bad enough that we got in to see a doctor fairly quickly. She was a tiny little woman who was bird-like in her movements. His ankle looked pretty deformed and she said that it looked pretty much like it was broken on both sides and possibly on the back, but not to worry, we had a really good orthopedic surgeon on call and she didn't think it would take much hardware to repair.

My jaw nearly hit the floor. Nathanael began to think that maybe BMX wasn't such a great sport after all as he prepared to kiss his summer job doing yard maintenance good-bye. I, in the meantime, began to feverishly make plans in my head for getting the various supplements and herbs together that he would need to prevent infection and to speed healing, and also to figure out ways of getting him some decent food.

They got him into a bed, dressed him in a horrid hospital gown, propped his leg up and stuck an IV in his arm with some demerol and gravol to help ease the pain. We sat there for a while, a thin curtain all that stood between us and the injured biker gang members who were cursing and swearing about the fight they had with the cops before being brought in to be patched up.

Before long, a technician from radiography came and we wheeled him down to the X-ray department. While he was in there, I began to lift up petitions to the Heavenly Father that somehow He would give us a miracle and have there only be a sprain and not a break.

We barely made it back to the cubicle and the doctor already had the X rays in her hands. She came into our "bedroom" with an amazed look on her face and told me to follow her. She led me over to where his X rays were and there I saw a picture of bones in perfect condition! You could see a great deal of soft tissue damage as well, but the bones were all sound. [big smile]

I couldn't contain myself. "Praise God! What an answer to prayer!" I exclaimed as I came around the corner with a huge grin on my face. The bikers, who moments before were filling the air with their profanities, stopped and grinned back at me. I helped Nathanael get dressed and we left the hospital less than 2 1/2 hours after we had arrived.

There is some serious stuff going on in my church family right now. When God answered my prayer about Nathanael's foot -- a foot that definitely looked broken -- I immediately thought, "God is encouraging me to pray with faith over this other situation." I am beginning to understand what Christ meant when talked about faith that moves mountains. I am encouraged to pray.