Real Encounter!

Have you ever had a time in your life where you have truly seen God working in it? This past year has been one of those for me, Chris, and Kat (artist formally known as Katie lol).

It all started about one year ago. Our church began a series called Real Encounters with God. This series was great and we were experiencing Bible stories in a way that we had never before. The weekend of October 29-30 was the weekend where healing was talked about, specifically The Healing at the Pool (John 5:1-14). We had heard this story countless times and always thought wouldn’t that be great to have happen for Chris, but seeing where it had taken place put new meaning to the story. At the end of the service, Brian (the  senior pastor) says that there will be people positioned at the front of the church to offer prayers of healing for anyone that would like it. If you don’t go forward to ask God to heal you, how can it happen? So, Chris went forward and had someone pray over him for the ability to walk. Before he could leave the auditorium, someone else asked to pray over him knowing what it was that he wanted to ask for. We thought wow what a great service, and what a great feeling of having people pray over you. We did not think any more about it until just after Christmas. That is when we saw that there was going to be a webinar about a new drug that had been released for children that had SMA just like Chris. We were curious and thought, why not learn more. On January 3rd we learned about Spinraza, a drug that is a treatment for people with SMA. We talked about what could happen, how much it would cost, and decided it was worth the risk. It took a little bit to find a doctor (March 5th) and get an appointment, but we knew we had to keep going forward. The neurologist that Chris had found was booked until June 5th. So again, we wait. The appointment comes, we find we like the doctor and the hospital (OSU), and are looking forward to the next steps. Yet because the drug is so new and technically only approved for children, there are problems with the insurance companies. So, we are back to waiting. There comes a night of prayer at church and we pray for the strength to continue waiting and for guidance. We also had a couple pray over Chris again. Chris’s birthday is fast approaching and we were hoping to know something more by then. The day before his birthday, OSU calls to say they are going to start the insurance process which is usually difficult and could take a month or more. They also got us set up with a Biogen/Spinraza Case Manager to help along the way. Right away the Case Manager knows of a closer hospital that is now doing the procedure (UC). We start to make plans to go there, but seek prayer and guidance again to see if this was the correct way. While waiting to hear from God, a letter from our insurance company comes saying the procedure would be covered at OSU (by the way this shows up about 1 week after we get the call from OSU to start insurance process), but it was worded weird so again we seek help from friends and family. We also called OSU to see what they thought. They were confused as well and were planning to have a meeting by the end of the week to discuss it among themselves. We waited to hear from them, but in the mean time we were hearing from God that OSU is the place we need to go. We did not cancel the appointment with UC until the next week. Fast forward one week (this week) we have now heard from OSU three times and the injections could be starting in about two weeks (right around my birthday). The day we had planned on starting over with UC is now the day the injection could begin at OSU (October 9th). By listening to God, we get to experience this journey faster than we were expecting.

God has been working with us and strengthening us through this whole process to reach the point we are today. The waiting was for us to give over complete control to God, or at least that is what I feel like. This journey is one that God has special plans for, I’m sure of it. It started with faith the size of a mustard seed when Chris went forward for prayer and our faith continues to grow as we progress through this journey. I cannot wait to see what happens after the injections begin and God’s miracle becomes more visible.