A Words of Faith story by Sandy Nadeau
We’ve all heard the saying, “Let go and let God”. But how does that look in practice?
As with most things in life, you don’t learn it without experiencing the needed action. We had a hard lesson, and it certainly has shown us how to let go. When there is nothing you can control, nothing that can be relied on except God, you learn.
Our little granddaughter was born with a heart defect. It wasn’t found until about five months of age. She was diagnosed as “failure to thrive” and was falling backward in growth. It was a scary time. She was our second grandchild. Both adopted, which is an additional story of letting go, but that for another time. She lost so much weight and was looking very gaunt. We prayed and prayed for answers. Soon she had to be hospitalized. Feeding tubes, tests, worry, heartache, more tests, more hospitals. We could only trust.
To see a small baby girl, so helpless, so reliant on those around her to fix what was wrong, not understanding why she was sleeping in so many strange places and not her own home for so long, needles, poking, prodding, it reminded us how helpless WE were in this. There was nowhere else to turn, but to the Lord to give us the strength we needed to see her through this trial.
At six months of age, after she’d gained a little weight, she was scheduled for open heart surgery. We lived nine hundred miles away, but I spent the majority of those two months living with them to care for our grandson while his sister was going through so much with her mommy and daddy. We waited hours as surgery was performed. Finally we learned that her heart was kind of twisted, with three holes in it and arteries in the wrong place with one pressing on her esophagus preventing food from going down. No wonder she wasn’t thriving. It was a remarkable surgery. A God-given ability to repair some serious defects. We were thankful.
Our faith was certainly tested. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that. It’s difficult to understand why an innocent child would have to go through all that. A fallen world causes defects. Faith in God and His Son is what gets you through it. That isn’t saying it’ll be easy, because it’s not. It wasn’t. A lot of tears were shed and paths worn into floors from pacing. But I knew that whatever would happen, Jesus was right there with us in those hospital rooms and the waiting rooms. He was with her in surgery, and He is with us all now as we rejoice in having a very healthy rambunctious girl running around as any normal two year old. He held us up, helped us keep putting one foot in front of the other, and guided us in our faith and prayers.
After such a scary thing, our desire to live closer became so strong. We made the decision, through a lot of prayer, to pack up and move our lives. Leaving our comfort zone, our perceived security, the life we’d know for thirty years, and head into the unknown. A huge leap of faith. No home, no job, no income, move into one room at our daughter’s, store forty years of belongings, and go. We felt such peace about it even though we had no idea what would come. We needed to be with our family. We came so close to losing our grandgirl, and we were missing out on them both growing up.
It still took a lot of faith and trust, and continues to need that daily since we made the move. We found a wonderful home, which we are settling into. The income part of things is not panning out well, but again, we’ve seen time and time again that the Lord will provide. If we are faithful and can trust Him, we know we’ll be okay. To be with our family has been the blessing coming out of faithfulness to God’s leading.
We just need to trust! God’s got this. He watches over the sparrows, He’s not letting go of us.
~*~
Author bio: Sandy Nadeau loves to go on adventures, photograph them and equally loves to write about them. She and her husband did a lot of four-wheeling in the backcountry of Colorado and shared those experiences with others by taking them up in the mountains. Her writing experience includes a community news column in a small newspaper for twelve years, magazine articles and two novels with adventure, mystery, romance, but most importantly sharing God’s love. She is currently a member of the American Christian Fiction Writers.
Thanks for sharing this Sandy. God is in control, but that doesn't mean we won't have scary times. I think one of the biggest blessings we take for granted is our health. Praise the Lord you have a healthy granddaughter!
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