It's Been One Year

Today makes one year since I got that awful phone call. One year since I rushed home to take Tim to the emergency room. One year since I stood over the bed begging God to spare him. One year since I watched him being loaded into a helicopter and flown to another hospital. One year since we raced by car to the hospital, not knowing if he had survived the flight there. One year since we sat at his bedside, completely helpless, unable to do a thing to help him. One year since God humbled us and showed us how little control we really have every single moment of every day. One year since I had no choice other than to place my son's life in God's hands, which was really just symbolic since that's where all our lives rest every second anyway, even when we don't acknowledge it.

It's been one year since God answered my prayers, and those of hundreds of people who interceded on our behalf, though it would be weeks before we knew that for sure. Looking at my Time Hop on Facebook this morning (a program that shows me the activity on my Facebook page for a particular date throughout the years), I was overcome with emotion as I read the frantic pleas for prayer. I remembered being so terrified and not able to get a good phone signal and finally getting in touch with my friend, asking her to post an urgent request for prayer so that as many people as possible could be praying. My friends in cyberspace responded in force. It was a Wednesday afternoon, and that night, across the land, believers in prayer meetings in churches we don't even know about lifted up Tim's name. Phone calls and texts and messages poured in, letting us know we weren't alone in crying out to God. We were lifted up and propped up by people who loved us, and it got us through the very long night, the following ten days in the hospital, and the months of recovery at home. We could not have made it without the prayer support of so many.

It's been one year since God slowed our busy lives down and forced us to focus on Him. One year since He so completely changed the way I think about things. One year since we realized that so many things we thought were important really meant nothing at all to us. One year since we began to re-prioritize things in our life.

It's been one year since God really showed me how involved He is in the tiny details. Things we might not normally notice, like the fact that the hospital they originally wanted to fly Tim to refused him because he was a pediatric patient.....but God knew that the highly qualified and much desired doctor we actually needed was already waiting at the other hospital. Or that a certain nurse that would go above and beyond the call of duty would be scheduled to work in the ICU that night, away from their normal cardiac care unit. Or when I needed a friendly comforting face in the original ER, in walked a nurse I actually knew and trusted, that I didn't even know worked there. God placed the right people in the right place, just when we needed them. That's no coincidence. It's also no coincidence that God placed a level headed friend with Tim during the wreck, so that someone would be there to get him home, call for help, keep him calm and still until I could get there, keep Ashley calm, help me load him in my car, and take care of things at my house for me. It was no coincidence that this happened right before Ashley left for church camp, where she would be distracted from worrying about her brother and where people who loved her could comfort her and allowing me to devote all my energy to Tim. God is in the little details.

It's been one year. It's been a lifetime and only a moment, at the same time. Some things have gotten back to normal, and some things never will. And as odd as it may sound, I am actually grateful for the events of one year ago. God used them to teach so many lessons. I can't say I'd choose to go through it again, voluntarily, because I'm just a weak human that avoids painful situations when I can. But I am so very grateful for the opportunity God gave us to learn to trust Him completely, to learn the power of prayer, to experience the love and compassion of others, to slow down and recognize what is truly important in life, and to watch Him work His wonders.

You may not have had such a dramatic reminder of God's power and love in the last year, but I guarantee that He's been at work in your life too. He's there in the big things as well as the small things. He's there in the big picture and the tiny details. And every day, in more ways than we can ever see, He shows us He loves and cares for us.

And if you are one of the many, many people who prayed for us, we thank you with all of our being.