Being the Answer to Someone's Prayer

Allow me to relate an event that happened several years ago. I was reminded of it in the local grocery store just a few years later. It is actually multi-faceted in relation to the topic of being an agent for the Lord in answering someone's prayer. It goes back more than 30 years. A new baby entered this life in the "usual" way, except baby arrived to a single mom, with a non-paternal boyfriend. "Mom" disappeared, leaving the baby with her now former boyfriend, who moved from Texas with the baby to Las Vegas. When Baby Michelle was about four months old she was seen in the ER of a local hospital for flu-like symptoms, treated and released to the former boyfriend. He returned the next night, deposited her and disappeared, never to be seen again. The docs diagnosed her new symptoms as shaken baby issues. In a moment of frustration, the guy had scrambled her brain. After sufficient hospital "recovery". Nevada DCFS placed her into the care of a loving, caring and qualified foster home.

Michelle was totally immobile and required total care. Her foster family consisted of three adults no longer living at home, four daughters ranging from 8-16 and one son, 17, plus mom and dad (a federal agent) This relationship went on for eight years. When the dad retired from is career position, the family moved to their native state of Utah. That kind of spoiled the foster home opportunity for Michelle. Nevada had difficulty in locating another private home situation willing (or able) to meet her total care needs. Located within twenty miles of her former foster family, Michelle was placed in a youth care facility. .I became acquainted with Michelle when I began courting the eldest daughter of the Foster Mom. In 1990 their daughter and I were married. When the youngest daughter went looking for a job as a CNA, she applied and went to work at the very facility where Michelle resided, discovering her "sister" living there. She would take Michelle home for family events, to movies, etc. So, my kids even got involved with her. As Michelle approached her 18th birthday, Nevada was searching for options for this soon to be young adult in a juvenile care system. Their first answer was to place her in a state-operated adult long-term care facility. This was met by objections from the only family this young lady had ever known. Thus, on her nineteenth birthday, Nevada made her a ward of the Utah courts, who granted guardianship of Michelle to my family. How many example have we seen just to this point of BEING THE ANSWER to other people's prayers?

We're going to skip forward five years. Although those years would expose many more folks becoming answers to prayers With this move, she acquired the love of several new brothers, an older sister, many more AND kept all the original foster family. With Michelle now in our care, we needed a van with a lift! A local doctor gave us a van, with the agreement that we would give it back when we no longer needed it. Then we acquired a former state vehicle fitted with a lift for $10,000.
Early in her life the doctors had estimated her life expectancy to be into her mid 20s. So, on December 24th, 2011, with her original foster mother, two of her original foster sisters, and several of my boys surrounding her bed, we held a family prayer. At the conclusion of this prayer, Michelle took her final breath in mortality, passing peacefully into Eternity!

With Michelle's passing, we had a fully paid for Dodge van that was not meeting its purpose. We had a good friend a few miles away, who had a daughter with severe disabilities, approximately same age. They had a similar-sized van which was nonfunctional. So, with no hesitation my spouse and I decided to offer them our van. For five years, as I had seen that van around the region, (it's easily identified by a mismatched driver door) I had only thought, "Glad to see they are still using it." Never in that time frame did it ever come to my a remembrance that we had GIVEN the van to them. Now, that reference to the local grocery storre.....
The husband parked a little ways from where I had just parked at the local market. As we exited our vehicles, I thoughtlessly stated, "I know that van!" Nearly in tears, he related the backstory of the day they received the van from us. His wife had just arisen from her knees, discussing with God their urgent need for a functioning van, and their lack of available funding. Their mortal phone rang and it was my spouse offering them the van. My point in sharing this is, in no way an effort to make my exwife and me look special. It is, however, a testimony that God DOES answer prayers, often using mortal beings to bring that answer! Further, that same day another good friend, totally unaware of our earlier action, offered us their 2005 Suburban. You could, I suppose call these coincidences. I call them blessing directly from God.

Check out this music video from Alabama!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_sevfQ7N70&sns=fb


Look around you for ways to be the Answer to someone's prayer!