He Is There - Guest Laura Lee Groves - God Is So Good

Welcome to my Wednesday feature God is So Good. Here I will share stories - true and fiction, mine and others' - of the Lord's presence in the midst of trials, struggles, and difficulties.

In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world. John 16:33b

I've been following Laura's blog for a while now. She often blesses me with her Friday's Fave Five, and other posts. She's definitely a "bloggy friend." So when life threw her a curveball (I know - cliche), I paid attention, and prayed. And when she offered to share God's workings in it, I absolutely agreed. I pray her testimony blesses you.

He is there; He is good

by Laura Lee Groves 

The jangling of the phone cut across everything that morning, neatly drawing a line between “before the accident” and “after.” It was the phone call no mother wants to receive; as a friend reminded me, “There is one worse.”

 My third son, Andrew, had just completed his first semester of teaching high school math and was loving it. He was traveling to his job that morning, and his car was hit head-on by a much larger vehicle. The phone call informed us that Andrew had been cut from his car and airlifted to a trauma hospital. Since Andrew lives in the middle of the country, far from our sunny Florida, my husband and I ran to the airport.

How can you say “God is good” on such a day? I can say with all confidence that His grace shone through the hardest of situations—and that was just the beginning. We frantically approached the ticket counter with the reservations we had just printed, only to be told these tickets were booked for the wrong day and today’s flight was full. I crumbled. “I don’t know what happened. My husband just booked them. Are you sure? Our son was in a serious car accident and we’re trying to get there…” The agent clicked a few more times and printed the strangest-looking boarding passes I’ve ever seen. She reeled off some special instructions and sent us on our way. Each attendant that eyeballed those passes just gave us a cursory look and rushed us on.

As we traveled, our oldest son reached Andrew’s side and was able to speak with doctors and nurses and give us a firsthand report. Soon Andrew’s principal and superintendant showed up at the hospital, staying all day with our oldest son as he waited, picking us up at the airport, and even loaning us a car.

 From offers of housing to a home-cooked meal served in the hospital room, we were surrounded by love. God’s people came out of the woodwork and quickly became His hands and feet.

We stayed through two surgeries, a hospital stay, and a rehab center stint, sometimes switching off so the other could go back to Florida to juggle jobs. And back in Florida, an army of servants was gearing up to provide meals, build wheelchair ramps, and scout out wheelchair transportation for us.

Since Andrew was single and wheelchair-bound, he chose to come to Florida for his rehab. The house was readied, meals were cooked, and the transition to a doctor here was seamless as a Christian doctor stepped forward to take on his care. Since then, God has placed Christian physical therapists in Andrew’s path, too—what a blessing.

Life has been a bit hard since January, full of ups and downs. But God has been there always, in the midst of it all. Andrew’s hard work has paid off, and he has progressed from wheelchair to walker to cane and brace.

I have felt God’s presence from the first moment forward, and I have wondered more than once how one faces such a thing without Him. I’ve learned so much, and my challenge now is to live in the light of those lessons, taking them back with me into the days that are tinged by ordinary. It became clear to me very early on that when the clutter of life is pushed away—all that we deem so important—He shines even more brightly. He is good. Yes, we live in a fallen world full of broken people; that’s why we need Him and His goodness!

In the midst of our need, He is there. He was there in the emergency room physician who stopped and helped at the accident scene. He was in the loving hearts and hands that cooked and built and in the ears that listened. He was in prayers from one coast to the other, from people I don’t even know, and He was in the scripture texts sent daily from my sweet daughter-in-law. He was in those who covered our jobs for us and helped ease us back into them once we returned. His love flows from the hearts of those who continue to pray for us and our son, even though months have passed. And in the dark of the night in a hospital room, He was there, holding this mom’s heart.

Laura Lee Groves survived the raising of four redheaded sons, and all those years of mothering convinced her that boy moms need some help and encouragement. She bundled all that into I’m Outnumbered! One Mom’s Lessons in the Lively Art of Raising Boys, published by Kregel.  

A high school English teacher, Laura has written for Focus on the Family’s Focus on Your Child, Book Lover’s Devotional (Barbour, 2011), Always There (Revell, 2012) the Mother of Boys Society at www.themobsociety.com and My Teacher’s Lounge at www.the-teachers-lounge.com/blog/. Laura loves to inspire readers with her blog, www.OutnumberedMom.com, and through her monthly newsletter. 

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It is in these difficulties that we truly see - and experience - His blessings. He is SO good.

Do you have a story you'd like to share about God's goodness in your struggles? Drop me an email and we can talk!  

 
Traveling Rough Roads With God's Strength