Even in the midst of extreme anxiety you can call on the Name of the Lord and He is there. Nothing is beyond His reach, and every little detail is important to Him.
Here we were, back from our trip to Seattle where we took Jeffrey to his special camp (Oops – Got To Head Back Real Quick!), and now after spending a few days at home it was time for Gary to start traveling again for his job. This was going to be Jeffrey and my first time staying alone for a few nights in our new home.
Our landscaping had pretty much been completed, and we now felt confident that Jeffrey would be able to get around outside our house in his chair all by himself, which we were all really excited about (Finally…). So one beautiful day when we had the sprinklers on watering our seeding grass in the backyard, Jeffrey stated he’d like to go and see what the sprinklers looked like. He was ready to go and check out our new yard.
No problem – this was going to be fun!
We had placed hard-packed gravel on one side of our house for extra parking and accessibility. It ran down to the bottom of the hill on that side. We had made sure that it was small fine gravel, and that it was firmly pounded into the ground because we didn’t want anyone getting stuck.
Jeffrey was so excited! I got him in his power chair, and he turned it on and started going down at a good steady pace. He made it to the bottom and watched the sprinklers for awhile (this may not seem like much to you, but this was a new thing for him), and then he was ready to come back up.
I had noticed one area as we had been heading down where the gravel appeared to be a little thick, so as an extra precaution I told Jeffrey to turn up the power on his chair so that he could get some good momentum going. He did so, and started going up the hill.
All of a sudden – BAM! The power in his chair totally went out! There was no possible way that I could push that heavy chair up the hill even by putting it in manual.
Then I had an idea: How about if I push him back down to the bottom of the hill, and then we can go around the other way? After all, that way was all grass.
We put my plan in motion and made it back down to the bottom of the hill. Then I started to turn the chair to head into the back, but the ground was so wet from the watering that the chair got totally stuck! I was to the point of tears by that point, wondering which direction I should go in our new neighborhood to try and find help. We hardly knew anybody yet!
So what was Jeffrey doing as I was freaking out, you ask? Well, he was praying!
Don’t worry, mom, Jesus won’t let us down…
Here was my precious boy, 12 years-old, holding it all together much better than I was.
And, of course, wouldn’t you know that just then one of our single neighbors that we had previously met “just happened” to walk by. He kindly helped me to get the big bulky chair up the hill and into the garage.
When he left all I could do was cry before my God asking His forgiveness in not trusting Him – and for not turning to Him instead of panicking!
But here’s a funny addition to the story: Since we still were not connected with any wheelchair repair shops in the area, I had prayed that Jeffrey’s chair would “come back to life.” And the next day it did – kind of…
Both Jeffrey and I had been praying, and so the next morning I went back to the garage to check it. Nope, still dead. So I started playing around with the wires to make sure everything was connected properly, and then decided to slide open the back panel.
What did I find there? A reset button! I pushed it, and “waa-laa” – on came the power!
Moral of the story: Remember, I’m a natural blonde.
The God Of All Comfort 