You just never know.

It's true, you just never know when God will intervene. It is so important to pray for those who don't know Christ, or even those who do know Him, and to pray for their safety. I experienced that lesson yesterday. Twice.

This summer, I determined, was going to be different from all of the previous summers. Since I have been home, our summers have been pretty boring, I've not wanted to do anything. This summer is going to be different. I have a lot of things that I think that Andrea would enjoy doing on my agenda, going to the local water park is one of them. Yesterday, we did just that. I learned quite a bit yesterday, just by accident.

My first lesson was: Five stories up is a long way to go on stairs. Yeah. I was only slightly winded, Andrea was pretty winded. I forget that she has stage 3 lung disease from when she was a baby. Before she had her heart surgeries, the pediatric cardiologist warned me that she would never have full lung access because of the damage from the patent ductus being open for so long. Sometimes it takes her walking a flight of stairs to remind me of that fact. Anyway, we get to the top and have two options: Take the Texas Free Fall to the bottom or the Brain Drain. I looked at the options and decided that the tube was the best way for me to go since I am not a fan of heights. My second lesson: Don't go ahead of Andrea. I was blessed to know that there was a young lady lifeguard at the top who has a sister with Down Syndrome, so she knew what to do to help Andrea out. Yeah, still...don't go ahead of Andrea. Lesson three: Don't let something that looks harmless fool you. I decided I would go down on the Brain Drain. I mean, how bad can a tube be? Let me tell you, for someone who is claustrophobic, it ain't a picnic. I stepped on the platform, was told to cross my arms and legs. As I was crossing my legs, a Plexiglas door slid shut in front of me. HUH? Wait! Too late, the launch countdown began and as I was about to protest the door shutting, the platform slid out from under me. Now, I'm not sure if I conked the side of my head with my hand or with the tube, but now I have a headache (still). About 30 seconds later, I was at the bottom, after sucking a good amount of water up my nose. Once I was out, I prayed that Andrea would not go into the tube.

Lesson four: DON'T LEAVE ANDREA BEHIND!! I should have sent her back down the stairs to wait for me, but instead I left her five stories up. The lifeguard helped her onto the slide and off she went, almost literally. Once she passed the platform, she freaked and banged up her arm pretty good. I heard the lifeguard and the crowd behind me utter profanities as they watched her freak out right at the top and then the collective sigh of relief as she slid into the pool at the end. Me? I prayed as hard as I could that God would protect her and bring her down safely. He did. We did a couple of other things, but nothing as crazy as that. The wave pool, a small slide and the lazy river wound up our day there. Although she wants to return to the water park, she said that she DEFINITELY will not be doing any big slides again. I willingly concur with her decision.

The second time I experienced His intervention came later that afternoon. After recounting the day to my Hubby, I sat down to read my email. I found that I had an email from my little brother, an unusual occurrence, but not one that normally would cause alarm....except this one did. It said that John is fine......uhm...say what? What happened? Upon opening the email I find that my brother, who has never been in a hospital save when he was born and the one emergency room visit when I broke his hand as a kid, is now been in the hospital for at least several hours. So, I called the hospital that was the likely choice for him to go to and got to his room on the first try. What I had found out is that he was lucky that he hadn't had a stroke.

My little brother is the kind of person who is as healthy as a horse. He has never been in the hospital except for the two times that I mentioned, and to visit others who were there for whatever reason. This panicked me some. What I had found out last night is he had been having headaches, which, again is unusual because he just doesn't get them. He went to the E.R. who told him to come back the following morning for some tests. They then admitted him and started him on rounds of blood thinners. He sounded tired, so I didn't keep him on the phone long.

I called this morning and talked to him and his wife and found out more about the situation. My brother and sister in law go every year to Bologna, Italy for vacation, sometimes twice a year. They love the little village and have even made noise about retiring there. Anyway, on their way back home, my sister in law sat next to a lady who had recently had a stroke. Unknowingly, she absorbed all of the information that this lady told her because this was an unusual type of stroke. There are very few warning signs. When they got back home is when my brother started to get the headaches. Remembering the information that the lady told them on the plane, he sought medical treatment, thus averting the stroke.

See, I pray for my brother and sister in law as well as other members of my family and friends who are not saved every day, as well as for the safety of those who are. I had not seen any evidence that these prayers were doing anything more than hitting the ceiling, yet everyday I still pray for these people. Yesterday, I saw that they are reaching the Throne Room and His ear. My brother was saved from a stroke by "the coincidence" (as it was put to me) of my sister in law being seated by someone who had recently experienced the exact same thing, except she did not get help in time to avert the stroke.
I received confirmation that God holds His own by the fact that although she was a bit shaken up by the time she got to the bottom, that Andrea was held safe in His arms all the way down the slide.

If you're praying for your loved ones, be assured that God is hearing your prayers. You may not see the results of those prayers in this lifetime, but rest in the knowledge that God listens and acts accordingly to intercessory prayer. The answers are not always what we want to see, and we don't always understand the reason that things happen the way that they do. Sometimes we are afforded the gift of hindsight, sometimes we get to see the positive results, but always we have to understand that we don't always understand everything.