You Want Me To Do What?

I hesitate to post this story, because this wasn't anything we want any credit for, but it is so wonderful that I have to share it. I don't for one second want to try and get a pat on the back, because this was the work of the Holy Spirit.....

This morning at church someone had a "word of knowledge" about a person with an infection. There were others "words" given, and then we, as members of the congregation, were asked to pray for the people that needed healing for these things.

First of all, I just love that about our church....you don't need a title to pray for someone, if you love the Lord and believe He can heal people, you can ask Him!

So, I went over to pray for a lady I didn't know. She was weeping and explained that there was a 17-year old girl in the hospital dieing of an infection and the doctors had no idea what was wrong with her and why it was happening. She was not breathing on her own and her family was told she would not make it. I had no idea if this lady was related to her or worked at the hospital and she just told us her first name. We prayed and this faith rose up in me and I believed God wanted to heal this girl. She told us the family members were not believers so we prayed for healing and salvation.

As I walked back to my seat, I felt the Lord say to me "Go pray with the family tonight at the hospital". He didn't ask me if I wanted to go if I felt up for it, He said "Go". I immediately leaned over and told my husband because I was honestly afraid by the time we left church I would talk myself out of it and the thought of doing that brought tears to my eyes. How many times did I hear God direct me and I made excuses for not following His instructions? I needed accountability because it isn't everyday that God tells me to visit people I don't know at the hospital their teenage daughter is dieing in. I checked back with the lady who we had prayed with, who turned out to be a friend of the family and she filled in the information I would need to meet with them, basically their first and last names. The thought of actually going through with this alternated between exciting and terrifying all day.

Around 6pm, we dropped the kids off at VBS (funny how that worked itself out?) and went over to the pediatric ICU at the hospital. As we were driving, The Husband looked over at me and said, "So, what's your......uhhhh.....". To which I finished his sentence "...plan?". "Yes, " he answered. Well, here's the funny part and another reason I knew it had to be God:

I had no plan.

The planner had no plan.

Zip. Nada. Zero. Just show up at the hospital and wait for God to direct us.

My flesh was freaking out.....what's plan A? Plan B? This is absurd! Are you going to walk in and explain that you're there to see people you never met before in the pediatric ICU? Could they arrest people for something like this and call it trespassing?

No, God was going to work it out. I knew it.

We headed up to the pediatric ICU and smiled at the nurses station as we got off the elevator. It was so funny to see The Husband glancing over at me as if any minute I would shout "By George, I think I've got it!! Here's what we'll do....". Instead, I said we were here to visit and they signed us in and gave us an ID tag. We then sort of wondered down the hall to a family waiting room and asked the volunteer at the desk where we could find this particular family. She told us she would check their daughter's room and we could look in the waiting room to see if they were in there.

Uhhhhh.....I had to explain we had never met them before and didn't know what they looked like. Long pause. (Please don't call security). She said okay and left to check the daughter's room. The nurse there told her they had gone to dinner, but seemed like they would be back. Alrighty, we decided we would take a little hospital walk and come back in a few minutes. This part was probably the closest I came to backing out. I was really trying to come up with an opening line without using any disturbing words like bizarre, strange or awkward, but I came up with nothing. Again, I decided I would rely on God and let Him do the talking. The Husband so graciously was going along with all of this, no questions asked!

We headed back up and really started to feel like fish out of water. How would we know who they were and how would they react to us coming into their lives uninvited? This was so out of my comfort zone! I may as well have been on a mission to Mars!

We noticed a couple go into the waiting room and The Husband saw pictures hanging off the man's backpack. He thought that was the couple, but the lady looked too young to have 17 year old daughters! As we were trying to decide if we would approach them or not, we saw the volunteer get up and say something to them and they all started to look around. We realized it was them so we stood up to introduce ourselves. Gulp.

to be continued.....