Answered Prayers

For some reason it's a common thing for me to forget through the day to find God in everything around me. Unfortunately, it's also all too common for me to not recognize answers to my prayers and give God the praise and glory that He deserves for answering those prayers. Last night I was praying that God would really open my eyes to all of His works and help me to see Him in everything, (yes, even my daughter's VERY strong will!!). Today started off exceptionally rough, clouding my vision again to God's wonder. The older 2 children were arguing, Roanen kept saying he had to go potty every 2 minutes, making me stop the cleaning up of the kitchen that so badly needed to be done, only to sit there in the bathroom with him for 10 minutes to have nothing happen, then a battle over NOT flushing the potty when there was no reason to (silly battle, I know now), then just being my over-emotional 36 week pregnant self, missing my husband, who has only been gone since yesterday and who will return on Friday. Then, thrown into the mix, we had to go into town to go to the post office to mail something for Nathan and I had to wait in line for what seemed like forever (I know my steering team friends can sympathize after our long talk about the PO on Friday night hehe). After we had finished our chores in town, we finally headed home and I was glad to be getting home right at lunch time to feed the kiddos and get them down to quiet time and enjoy some quiet time of my own. Jayna and Quaid got out of the van and I asked Jayna to unbuckle Roanen so he could get out, but for whatever reason, she didn't. So, I unbuckled him and I can't remember now how I got him out, if I just held his arm as he got out, or if I lifted him out, or what, but when he was on the ground he started screaming and yelling "owie"! I picked him up and took him inside and tried to find out what was wrong with him, finally narrowing it down to his left arm. He reached the point where he wouldn't move it at all and if I moved him, he screamed. I tried calling Nathan with no luck, and of course this was at lunch time, so the dr's office was closed. I decided just to take him into Urgent Care, figuring he probably dislocated something somehow. Nathan called back just as we were getting ready to go out the door, so I told him what was going on and he said to take him in. During this time of trying to figure out what was wrong Jayna had been trying to help calm him down, then said, "I'll be right back" and went into her room. She came back out and said, "I just had to go in there to pray for Roanen". It was awesome to have her do that all on her own. All the way into town I was praying that they would be able to put his elbow (that's what he was pointing to when I asked him where it hurt) back into place with as little pain as possible and no more trauma to the little guy since I've heard that the pain of re-locating something is more painful than the dislocation itself. So, we got in there and when I got him out of his car seat he started crying again and saying "owie" and wouldn't move his arm. We got checked in and then had to wait our turn. Roanen was sitting on my lap, then decided to get down and play with the older 2 children, but was still holding his arm in close to his belly and not using it for anything. Then, all of the sudden, he was fine! He was running around, throwing his arm around, using it to climb up a climbing toy in the waiting room, grabbing things, just like nothing had ever happened! They called us back to a room and we sat there for a couple of minutes, waiting for the dr and he was climbing up on the chair, putting pressure on that arm and everything. I gathered up the kiddos and went back out and found the nurse and told her we were just going to go, because he was perfectly fine! They said that was fine, that it's not uncommon for nursemaid's elbow to correct itself. We got out to the van and we were getting ready to pull out of the parking lot when I realized we needed to stop and thank God for healing Roanen's arm in the exact way that I had prayed for...with NO pain!! Even now sitting here, it makes me tear up and warms my heart to know that God cares so much for me and my children that He heard my prayer, not only the one today for Roanen, but also the one from last night to open my eyes to His wonder and His almighty power.