Carried
As I was with Moses, so I will be
with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. Joshua 1:5
“Dad?
Can you hear me? Dad!” No response. I tried to think straight, despite my
panic.
“Mom!
Mom! Get in here!” I called out the
window. She wasn’t in the side yard. I
ran and opened the front door.
“Mom! MOM! GET IN HERE!”
“What?
What’s wrong?”
“Dad. He’s on the floor!”
“Call 9-1-1!”
“I did!”
She and
my neighbor rushed in and saw that he was still breathing. “We should put him
on his back,” Sharon said. They rolled him over. Moments later, he stopped
breathing. “Mouth-to-mouth” Sharon said. Then his heart stopped. “We need to do
CPR.”
“I don’t know CPR” Mom said. Sharon told her
to breathe into his mouth and she pushed on his chest until his pulse returned. They had to do it twice. The paramedics
arrived, took over, and got the necessary information before they left.
As awful
as that was, I can see how God orchestrated it all perfectly. I’d watched Dad go in the house and followed
him. If I’d brushed it off and stayed outside, no one would’ve known anything
was wrong. And it may have been too late
by the time we did.
Sharon
had come over to see what we were up to that morning. Because she was there
when Dad was down, she helped Mom put him on his back and gave her a crash
course in CPR. She contacted the church, so people came to the hospital to
support us.
About 10
friends stayed with us in the lobby while we waited for the doctor to come out.
They walked through it with us. Over the next few days, Mom and I remarked
about how we felt like we’d been carried the whole time.
God’s
like that. We all go through hard times,
whether they’re financial, medical, relational or otherwise. But we don’t go through it alone. God’s right there with us and will carry us
through. The next time tragedy strikes, remember you’re not alone. Call out to God.
He’ll be there.
