My First Encounter with God

For as long as I can remember I’ve been in church. My favorite part of church was the music. Song and dance was how I connected with God…or so I thought. It took me decades to REALLY experience God and it had nothing to do with music or even church. Stay with me…I’m going somewhere with this.

I didn’t truly experience God until I was twenty-nine years old. I had two boys, three and one years old. My one-year-old, Landon, was having serious complications with his health. This was before he was diagnosed with Eosinophilic Esophagitis (EOE). We had no idea what was wrong with our child at this time. He wouldn’t eat, he had terrible rashes all over his body that were bloody and full of pus, and he couldn’t sleep more than thirty minutes at a time due to the pain he was in. My husband and I became desperate to get him some help. We didn’t care where we had to go or what we had to do, we just wanted our baby to feel better. Our son’s primary care physician referred us to a specialist who later told us about a program for kids with the same issues as Landon. The doctor told me he’s sent children there with terrible rashes and two weeks later, they returned completely clear. This was an answer to our prayers. We were so excited. The doctor then told us that it was a two week out-patient program at National Jewish Hospital in Denver, Colorado.

My husband and I looked at each other and gave a half smile. We both knew it was going to be a challenge figuring out a way to get to Denver, Colorado from Dallas, Texas. We were struggling financially. My husband had a decent paying job. However, my son was on a nutritional formula that cost about $1,000 a month. I was a stay-at-home mom so we only had one income. Things were really tight. But my husband and I were willing to do whatever we had to in order to get Landon some help. We had $155 to our name. I asked my husband if we should cancel our reservation with the hospital. My husband’s exact words were, “Absolutely not! We’re going to have to just trust God.”

We packed and loaded the kids in the car and headed out to Denver (a 13-hour drive) with only $155. We stopped by the store and picked up some snacks, sandwich meat and bread. We were left with $140. We filled up our SUV, prayed for God’s protection and guidance, and we hit the road. Our GPS took us through New Mexico to get to Colorado. While in New Mexico, we drove a three hour stretch on a two-lane road through the desert; not a car or business in sight. About an hour into it, we realized we only had ¼ of a tank of gas. I started to panic. Here we were with two kids in the desert at two o’clock in the morning with no gas. My husband held my hand and said, “It’s going to be alright. We’ll make it to the next gas station.” He was right!

We arrived in Denver around 8 am with only about $65 left. We had to check Landon in at 8:30 am. We pulled into the hospital parking lot around 8:15. They told us that Landon would have to stay the first night at the hospital for observation and only one parent could stay with him. My husband suggested that I stay with Landon and he would figure something out for him and our other child. So here we were almost eight hundred miles from anyone we knew for two weeks with only $65. We knew our faith was being stretched and tested. We were determined to press on no matter how uncomfortable it became.

Once we got to the hospital, it really began to sink in that we had traveled all the way to Denver with barely any money and no place to stay…but we pressed on. My husband and I held hands in solidarity. We were in this together. After we got Landon checked in and ready to go, one of the nurses gave us a folder with lots of information about what would happen over the next two weeks. She also informed us that there was a cafeteria in the lower level of the hospital. My husband and I looked at each other and gave each other another half-smile because we knew we wouldn’t be able to afford to eat in the cafeteria every day. “Oh, by the way, we have vouchers that you can use in the cafeteria while your son is a patient here.” The nurse said just before leaving. Tears began forming in my eyes. That nurse had no idea what those vouchers meant to us. Now that we didn’t have to use the money we had for food, my husband began calling around to see if he could find a cheap hotel we could stay in for a couple of nights. He asked one of the nurses if they knew of any cheap hotels in the area. She told him we didn’t have to stay in a hotel. He gave a perplexed stare. She pulled out a flyer for a nearby Ronald McDonald House. She said it was about five minutes from the hospital and we could stay there FREE OF CHARGE for the next two weeks. My husband stood there staring at that nurse as tears began to run down his face. “Thank you,” he said as he walked away from the desk trying his very best to maintain his composure. He came back into my son’s room with a face full of tears. “What is it?” I asked him. “We have a place to stay.” He said falling into my arms. We were both so overwhelmed with joy and so thankful to God. But He didn’t stop there!

The next day, the doctor came and spoke to us about all the medications he recommended for Landon. It was a lengthy list. We took the prescriptions down to the pharmacy and handed the person at the window our insurance card. She told us our insurance wouldn’t cover it and we would have to pay out of pocket. Once again, we were placed in a place of uncertainty. We stared at the lady for a few seconds and then explained to her that we had traveled all the way from Dallas and we couldn’t afford to pay out of pocket. She stared back at us for a few moments, smiled and said, “Don’t worry about it. We’ll figure something out.” And she handed us all of his medications.

God confirmed over and over again that He was with us and that He would provide us with everything we needed. He didn’t stop there! Every day that we were there, God did something miraculous. He reminded us every single day of His goodness and grace.

A couple days before it was time for us to leave, we met a lady from Oklahoma who had a very sick daughter. And like us, she had stretched her faith and traveled to Denver to get help for her. She told us that she had spent everything she had trying to get there and had no idea how she was going to get back home. We knew right then that we had to give her the money we had. God had already shown us that He would provide us with whatever we needed so we stretched our faith a little further and gave her the money. We put it in a white envelope and had someone else hand it to her so that she couldn’t refuse it. Tears formed in her eyes as she looked inside the envelope. My husband and I looked from afar and began to thank God.

The day had come for us to travel back home. Just like we knew we would, we had more than what we needed to get back home. But yet again, we were faced with another obstacle…snow. I think I can speak for most Texans when I say, Texans can’t drive in the snow! We were literally in a snow storm. I had never seen so much snow in my life. We prayed for God’s protection and prayed for Jesus to take the wheel (literally). We drove twenty miles an hour most of the way back home. There were countless cars on the shoulder that had slid off the road and several car crashes. We pressed on slow and steady. We made it back home twenty-one hours later safe and sound.

We pulled into our garage and looked back at Landon, whose face was now completely clear and thanked God once again.

“But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” I Corinthians 2:9

#encounterwithGod #goodnessofGod #Godsgrace #faith #encouragement