The Land of Ozz

As I said in my earlier post, “it was amazing”. I got to visit with some of the folks who attended last year in Charleston, SC plus I made a ton of new friends from all over the country.

The best part of the conference for me was the testimonies. I got to hear dozens of folks stand up and tell what the conference meant to them. I stood up and spoke of how important the conference was to our family. This conference or at least the trip to the conference started with a great big challenge. Sherry and I were sitting on the airplane in Atlanta waiting on the door to close. The co-pilot was late so we were past our scheduled departure time when my cell phone started to ring. It was the husband of a couple we have become very close to over the past two years. I answered to have my friend tell me that his son had just died. He and his wife wanted me to tell Sherry before she heard it from anyone else. He had not even made it home from the hospital to tell his four year old daughter when he called me.

Our relationship with this family really began in December 2004 when Sherry as I were leaving Caden’s hospital room to go to the home of Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo for the only Christmas party that we would attend that year. Sherry and the mom of this family had taught school together in recent years but had lost touch due to Sherry staying home after giving birth to Riley. We stepped into the hall that night at the hospital to find this family whose son was in the room next door to Caden in the cardiac unit of the hospital. Their son was born only a week before our son Caden and had as many if not more medical concerns. Sherry and the mom grew very close from that day forward. Over the next year and a half they took turns baby sitting for each other so that we could get dates. This was a big deal since your average sitter and even some family members would generally not feel very comfortable with a feeding pump and suction machine. Sherry and her also spent quite a few mom’s nights out scrap booking.

The call to my cell phone this past Thursday afternoon immediately caused Sherry to question whether she should return to Charleston or continue on to Dallas. My answer was without hesitation. I knew that these folks had grown by leaps and bounds in their faith and trust in God in the past 20 months. I knew that they would be well taken care of by their church members and family. I also knew how important it was for us to make this trip to Dallas. God wanted us in Dallas and He had mad it abundantly clear to us in recent weeks.

We had tried to plan for the trip months ago, but the funds just weren’t there so we scrapped the idea. We also felt at the time that we could not leave our son Caden and travel halfway across the country. Caden had been hospitalized three times at that point this year. That was before his heart surgery in June. Two of those trips to the hospital were by ambulance. We felt that we had to take him and a sitter who could care for him at the hotel while we attended the conference. We were wrong. We had been praying that God would provide the way if it was his will for us to go to Dallas. We found that as always we just needed to trust God. The capable family members and sitter that God provided here at home where certain that they could handle Caden. Even though the childcare issues were made clear we still had problems with financing the trip. I did not have enough Delta points to get us both to Dallas and the tickets were out of our budget. That is when Mike, one of my few Christian co-worker friends, threw a cool 50,000 Delta points at us and reserved Sherry’s ticket. I had enough to book one more ticket for myself and I also had enough hotel points to get a really nice room for three nights in Dallas. The financial concerns were solved. Oh, did I mention that we were blessed with a much larger tax return that we expected at about the time the points were given to us? That easily took care of the conference registration fee, the rental car cost, plus some spending money without affecting our monthly budget. God answered clearly again. Praise God from whom all blessings flow.

I am certain after attending the conference that were certainly meant to be there. After thinking about it I am also certain that the timing of that phone call was one last attempt of the devil trying to steal our joy. My friend had not idea of the timing because he had no idea what flights we where on or when. We should have been in the air anyway, but the co-pilot was late arriving to the airplane. It was at the time I took the call that the flight attendant announced that all cell phones must be turned off. We buckled up and requested a box of tissues after a brief explanation to the flight attendant on why we were both crying. The trip was full of tears, but I can honestly say they were not all tears of grief. That day Sherry and I celebrated that child’s life together at 30,o00 feet just as we did this afternoon in a memorial service with his family. I know it may sound weird to some who might ask how you celebrate after the loss of a 20 month old child. It is totally a God thing. The pastor today spoke of the relationships that were made through the life of this little boy. These are relationships that will last forever. Some of the relationships that were built were with the Lord himself though the life and death of this child.

This entry was posted on Monday, July 17th, 2006 at 11:33 pm and is filed under Faith, Family, Parenting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.