Faith When Tragedy Strikes

​On Wednesday I got the text a mother never wants to see.  “Our son choked on a toy and is headed into surgery at the emergency room.”
 
People have often asked me how I stay so calm during situations of crisis.  One reason is because God prepares me for every little moment.  Remember how last weekend I launched my new blog?  (This one you are reading now.)  Turns out God was preparing me for a crisis that was about to happen in my life.
 
In my last blog I highlighted how Esther, when faced with a crisis, first prayed and gathered everyone she knew to pray too.  So when my sweet two-year-old baby boy was in the hospital going under anesthesia to have a toy removed from his throat, and I was fifteen minutes away, I knew what to do.  God had prepared me. 
 
I called on my people to pray. 
 
And pray they did.  While I panicked that I was not by my son’s side to comfort him as I raced to the hospital, not for a minute did I think he wouldn’t make it.  I knew God had him. I knew He would protect him.  How could I not believe that God was in this moment after he had been so kind to prepare me for it?

In my last post I wrote about how Esther said to the Jews that if they would pray she would go before the King, and if she perished she would perish.  I noted her bravery and trust.  But maybe I gave her too much credit. 

​Maybe she was just blessed with a super natural faith to know everything would be OK.  That the great protector was on her side.  Perhaps she was chosen for such a time as this because of her mighty faith in God.  Perhaps she was chosen because she would help others to increase their faith by simply practicing hers.  Maybe we all have the power to do that.

I wonder how much more we all could do if we had faith that was mighty and pure and if our first action to any situation was to pray.  It makes me curious enough to make a more intentional practice of doing just that. 
 
P.S. The toy was successfully removed from my little boy, a little tykes bolt that was way too large for swallowing to begin with.  After a night at the hospital for observation and a trip back to the ER for a fever scare, chest x-rays showed a fully healed boy who swallowed a toy that happened to have a hole in the middle-which saved his life.  God is faithful.  So faithful.