A Night at the Game

Well I wasn't expecting that. Last night we were out for a little fun at a Fort Wayne Tincaps baseball game. Ok, so it was actually at the Silverhawks stadium in South Bend, but we're Tincaps people. It was my wife, Erin, and I and our 2 oldest boys. At the game, they had a little boy and his dad come out to run the bases - homerun for life or something. The boy had gone to Memorial Hospital with croup and they saved his life after he stopped breathing, his heart stopped and lungs collapsed. But there he was down on the field happy and healthy running the bases and high-fiving both teams who lined the 1st and 3rd baselines; pretty cool thing. There was moving music and on the jumbotron there was a video of various folks from the hospital speaking.  All of  sudden there was a familiar face - a dear woman we know as Dr. O. (Her name is Dr. Okinlami.) And at this point the wheels began to come off. I looked over at Erin and tears were welling up in her eyes, and I may or may not have been a little choked up myself. Erin was hugging son #2 - Andrew - close and we were both trying to tell him that that's the doctor that took care of him.
See when my 2nd son was 3 weeks old he contracted RSV. I won't give you all the details, but after the staff at Community Hospital of Bremen saved his life, he was taken to Memorial Hospital of South Bend where he would spend 9 days in the PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit). The doctor that met us there that night was Dr. Okinlami and she remained his primary doctor for those 9 days. She and the excellent staff there kept our son breathing and alive.

Andrew in the PICU at Memorial Hospital in South Bend.

So when we heard the little guy's story at the game and saw him running the bases tonight and then saw Dr. O. and realized we're sitting enjoying a baseball game with this 9 year old boy who almost didn't make it past 3 weeks old. Well, that puts things in perspective. The moment passed and we had a fun (and cold) evening at the game.

Andrew at his 9th birthday.

What's this little story about our unexpected night at the ball park doing a church's blog? It was a sweet reminder of God's faithfulness to us. God saved my son's life. But God uses means. God used the staff in the Bremen hospital ER to stabalize the little man. And he used Dr. Okinlami and the others at the Memorial PICU to keep him breathing and eventually make him well. And God is still in the business of using people and places like that: witness the little boy running the bases last night. Often God's blessings flow to us through the instrumentality of people around us. Watch for them; thank them when God uses them to be a blessing to you and rejoice when he uses them to be a blessing to others. And when God blesses you, praise him and make sure to tell people about it...which is what I'm doing here. Psalm 40:9-10 "I have told the glad news of deliverance in the great congregation; behold I have not restrained my lips, as you know O LORD. I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart; I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation; I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness from the great congregation."