We serve a great and mighty God. If I didn’t truly understand that before this week, I do now.
I know there might be people who think that I talk about God too much on this blog. Sometimes I think I talk about Him too much. I can see His powerful hand at work in my life though, see His touch on things beyond my control so clearly, that I can’t stop myself from telling you about it, even though I might want to. Certainly there are things that I would rather not write about. I’ve struggled for two days about whether to write this or not. There are times when I fail as a mother or a wife, and I don’t want to say, gee, you know, I screwed up. Sometimes I just don’t want to share the unpleasant parts of life. Then God steps in, and how can I not come here, to basically an account of the events of my life, and not tell you how God has worked so amazingly? I can’t.
Then I said, I will not make mention of him, nor speak any more in his name. But his word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I was weary with forbearing, and I could not stay. –Jeremiah 20:9
Wednesday was another beautiful day here in Oklahoma. Reagan and I were up early, and she was outside with me even before she had breakfast I think, picking flowers and playing with the dogs. I did my outside chores and then baked chocolate chip cookies for Big and Little Chad in payment for fixing my broken water pipe on Monday. Big Chad came and got my Chad to take him out on the river to get their fishing pontoon unstuck. He was out of the house, and Ryan and Reagan wanted to go play video games with their cousin Chris who was in from Nashville. To tell you the truth, I was almost glad to send them, so that I could have a little time to work in quiet, such a rare commodity in this house. I finished up inside stuff and moved outside to clean the front porch and build a rabbit cage. Usually, I like to keep the kids in eyesight, but they would be with Sean’s brother and his wife, and I was feeling like I was being too overprotective. They’d be fine, I just needed to let go a little bit. They don’t get to see Chris that often, and they love him to pieces, and so I let them go.
So I’m outside working and Sean’s brother pulls up outside. He said Reagan had had an accident and was a little scraped up and needed me. So I got in the car and we drove the the two houses (It is my SIL’s house, our house, Mother and father in laws house, and then My BIL’s. All family, right in a row) to his house where she was sitting on the porch. Well, she’s sitting on the porch, how bad can it be, right?
We still don’t entirely understand what happened. It seems that Chris, who is younger than Reagan, had taken the four wheeler. Reagan (who isn’t allowed on the four wheeler at all) had jumped on the back and when he took off, she tumbled off the back.
I walked up on the porch and got my first look at Reagan.My baby was sitting there, unfocused, bleeding, and so dirty. After a little bit, I asked them to call an ambulance, she just couldn’t focus and she had a huge chunk out of her knee. I was afraid that she had some head trauma, because of how loopy she was. The ambulance came and took her and I to the hospital where my husband works. He was working in radiology that day, and so he walked her through the cat scan, where they discovered she had broken the bone in her right sinus cavity. She also had to have her knee scrubbed out and three staples in it to hold it down loosely while it heals so that it can drain properly.
I’m not writing a lot of detail because the details of this aren’t important. What is important is this. God was there, and prayer works. If you had seen her, as I walked up on the porch, you would never have believed that she didn’t have something broken, somewhere. There was not one limb not scratched, not one inch of skin not covered in dirt. She of course didn’t have on a helmet, she wasn’t even allowed on that thing. She hit her head hard enough to break the bones inside of her face, but she didn’t have a concussion (although she doesn’t remember getting on the four wheeler, or anything from the time she took some cookies over there until she woke up in the ambulance, although she was awake the entire time) She doesn’t have any broken bones in her arms or legs, no internal injuries, just a chunk out of her knee, and a broken bone in her face. It is just such a miracle. God definitely had His hands on my child as she fell off that four wheeler, definitely watched over her when I wasn’t, and definitely answered prayer.
I know you’re thinking to yourself, so Jan, did you panic now and pray later? And you know, I didn’t. I am not a person who is good at praying out loud. I pray a lot, all day, usually in little one sentence converations with God. He tells us to be constant in prayer, and I am, but not in long formal prayers that are well thought out. I guess you could say I pray by the seat of my pants. But Wednesday, Boy I tell you, I prayed. I took one look at her, grabbed my BIL’s hand, and I prayed. Loud and Long. I knew she needed my prayers, and a mother’s instinct took over. Later I prayed in the seat of the ambulance as we went down the road. Complete strangers came up to my friend Tina and I in the hospital and prayed with us. And later that night, when Reagan was home (we weren’t even in the hospital overnight, Praise the Lord) and I got up to give her another dose of pain relievers, I prayed while tears of joy and thankfulness rolled down my face and I thanked God for His watch care over my daughter. Prayer works. More importantly, God works. I know that things could have been so different, and it is through His great and mighty works, that they aren’t.
