The Unlikely Place I Found God

I'd like to say I found God in church...but I didn't. I learned about God in church but I definitely didn't find Him there.

Photo by Francesco Ungaro from Pexels

I sat in church three days a week in search for God. I had been a church goer for as long as I could remember. I told people all the time that I was born in the church because that's what it felt like. But, believe it or not, I didn't find God amongst the pews of cheerful believers or through the many acts of service as I relentlessly served my church. I sat in church Sunday after Sunday hoping to hear a word from the Lord, but I got crickets instead. I listened intently as other church members shared their miraculous encounters with God wondering when my experience would happen. I was told the more time I spent in prayer and the more I read my bible, the more likely I would be to experience an encounter with God. I prayed often and tried to read the Bible. However, the Bible was confusing to me. There, I said it! The Bible didn't make in sense to me which often left me pleading to God for understanding. Still, I heard and felt nothing. (Since then, I've learned to get a Bible I can read! Usually, the New American Standard Translation.) I began to feel like maybe God didn't know me after all. Perhaps, I had been sitting in church all those years learning about a complete stranger. I kept up a brave face and continued acting as if I was in tuned with our Heavenly Father even though I really felt like a child lost in the dark.

In year 2011, I gave birth to my second child, a gorgeous baby boy named Landon. He wasn't a fussy baby at first. He mostly slept, ate, and pooped like most babies. I noticed a change in behavior when he was around two months. He cried nonstop. He literally woke up crying and fell asleep crying. My husband and I didn't know what to do. I knew something was wrong with my little baby. I took him to the doctor and he couldn't find anything wrong so we were sent home with no answers. Then my baby's skin began to change. At first, it just looked like baby acne. I wasn't too worried about it since my first child had baby acne also. But after a couple of months, my child's baby acne turned into a full blown breakout from head to toe. He even had bumps on the palms of his hands and the bottoms of his feet. By the time I got him back to the doctor, the bumps were full of puss and bleeding. It was so bad, I was afraid to touch him. I didn't want to hurt him.

The doctor (Dr. Chad Smith, the best pediatrician I've ever taken my kids to!) took one look at him and made it his mission to figure out what was going on. After much research, we decided to give Landon a blood test for allergies. We finally had some answers! My baby had nineteen different allergies including milk, soy, egg, wheat, peanuts, and tree nuts. Landon was immediately put on an elemental formula and topical steroids. But unfortunately, his breakouts got worse. We finally took him to an allergist (whom my son still sees to this day, Dr. Greg Santilli) who then referred us to National Jewish Hospital in Denver, Colorado.

Panic began to set in because my husband and I didn't have the money to take a two week impromptu trip to Colorado. We were just barely scraping by trying to pay for Landon's formula which was $46 a can. Also, there was no way my husband could take off two weeks from work. He was already working all the overtime he could to pay for all of Landon's medical expenses. We were in between a rock and a hard place. Husband and I talked it over and he told me he felt God would provide. I have to be honest, I wasn't too hopeful. I had been serving God (what I thought was service) for years and hadn't heard a peep. But, I can admit, God did always provide.

We packed up the kids (we only had two at the time) and headed toward Denver, Colorado (a sixteen hour drive) with $155 to our names. That $155 had to cover food, gas, hotel and any other expense that came up. We CLEARLY did not have enough money. But, we were desperate to get our baby some help. We figured we would just sleep in the car for two weeks in the hospital parking lot while Landon was being treated. I know what you're thinking..."What an irresponsible thing to do!" Yes, on the surface, it was a very unwise decision to pack our two kids up and head out of town for two weeks knowing we didn't have enough money. But my husband felt very strongly that we should go and trust God. And so we went.

A few hours into our trip, we noticed we were low on gas. Since we were driving overnight, every gas station we arrived at was closed. We were somewhere in the New Mexico desert. For hours all we saw was dirt. We were so afraid we would end up spending the night on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere because we had run out of gas. We began praying immediately. I wasn't expecting God to do anything miraculous. I just wanted to make it to a gas station. We decided we would just keep driving until we found an open gas station. We desperately depended on God for every mile we drove. A smile began to spread across our faces when we saw the sun begin to rise and we had made it all the way to Colorado Springs, Colorado! We were only an hour away from Denver. Somehow we made it from Dallas to Colorado Springs on two fill ups!

Once we got to Denver, we called ahead to get Landon checked into the hospital. They greeted us with kind enthusiasm completely oblivious that we got there on a hope and a prayer. As the receptionist handed us some paperwork to sign, she asked us if we had been to the Ronald McDonald House. We said no. She told us to head over there because that's where most parents stayed while their children were being treated. I took the flyer that was laying on the desk and had my husband call to see what the price was for a two week stay. Again, I wasn't very hopeful. At this point, we only had $100 and we still had to eat for two weeks.

My husband decided he would drive over to the Ronald McDonald House since it was right near the hospital while I finished the paperwork. While handing the paperwork back in, the nice receptionist informed me that we could get free food vouchers for breakfast and lunch at the hospital for the two weeks Landon was there. Here I was worried about how to make that $100 stretch for food and God had already worked it out!

As I reached down in my purse to call my husband to tell him the good news, my phone began to vibrate. I smiled when I saw it was my husband. I couldn't wait to tell him about the food vouchers. But before I could get it out he told me he had good news. He spoke to the people from the Ronald McDonald House and they said we could stay there at no charge (FREE) while Landon was being treated at the hospital! And on top of that, they also provide dinner each night for the guests. My mouth literally fell open. I couldn't believe, not only did God provide safety and mileage on the road, but He's also provided food (breakfast, lunch and dinner) and shelter! My God is awesome! We were overwhelmed by God's goodness. Nothing could make us doubt God at that point.

But it didn't stop there! By the end of the first day at the hospital, we received several medication prescriptions. Our insurance refused to pay for anything because they didn't feel it was medically necessary (even though we submitted several letters of medical necessity, but I digress.) Again, we knew we didn't have the money to even pay co-pays, let alone the full costs of the medications. My husband took the prescriptions down to the pharmacy and handed them to the pharmacist. He stood there with tears in his eyes waiting for her to give him a ridiculous price for the meds. The pharmacist stared at him for a few moments, handed him the medications and said, "Don't worry about it, Honey. We'll bill you later." Can you believe that?! We still haven't received a bill for those meds to this day.

God spoke to us through every encounter we had. I could no longer say that I had never heard from the Lord. He was speaking loud and clear! For the first time in my life, I knew that God was real. I knew God answered prayers and that He cared for us. I had finally met God for the very first time. There was too much noise in my everyday life. I had to get away and focus solely on Him, not the church. I am not anti-church by any means, but we have to be careful not to replace God with the church. That's idolatry!

If that wasn't enough to make you a believer, I have one more thing to share that happened while in Denver. About seven days into our trip, an $11,000 check was direct deposited in our bank account from the IRS! Apparently, we were way over taxed the previous tax year (probably because my husband worked so much overtime) which resulted in this very large tax refund. We knew we would get it eventually but, we had no idea that check would come several weeks early. How often are governmental checks sent early? Let that sink in!

Let's recap! We left Dallas, Texas with $155 in our pockets, nowhere to sleep and barely enough money to feed ourselves. We came back home (in a snowstorm that we weren't even fazed by because God had already proven Himself) with $100 left over from the $155 and an additional $11,000! We took a two week trip to Denver and didn't have to worry about food, shelter, or medical expenses. And best of all, Landon came home completely clear! Not a bump in sight! He was finally able to get a good night sleep and be a happy baby.

God is so amazing! And now I know that for myself, not because someone told me. I was finally able to experience God for myself! My life was never the same after this trip. This certainly wasn't the last time God showed up and showed out (as the church folks say), but I'll save those stories for future blog posts. I hope you were blessed by this story. If you were, please leave me a comment.