Carried

As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. Joshua 1:5

 I followed him up the stairs, sensing something was wrong. When I got in the door, Dad was on the floor, heaving on his side, barely able to breathe. 

“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.