Facing your giant

The Sunday School lesson for my third through fifth graders today was on the well known story of David and Goliath. When King Saul questioned David's ability to take on the giant, David replied that God had delivered him from the paw of a lion and the paw of a bear. We all face various giant sized problems throughout our lives, and it helps in those moments to stop and recall the times when the Lord has brought us through other challenges.


As I was preparing to teach this lesson, I paused to recollect a few of the times God has helped me face a giant. The first that came to my mind was last summer when He provided a way for my newborn son to be transported by ambulance. I had spent most of that summer in a hospital almost two hours from our house because it was the closest hospital that performed fetal blood transfusions, which my son needed to have done more than once. We were told when he was born that he would likely be in the NICU for 6-8 weeks. Since I had already spent so many weeks so far away from my husband and other two children, I desperately wanted to have him transported to a NICU much closer to our home. The NICU staff told me that the insurance would not pay for his transport and that it would cost somewhere between $750-$2,250. We were already facing the possibility of owing thousands of dollars for medical bills from the pregnancy, so we did not feel we could afford this expense.

I mentioned this to a friend on the phone, and she said she would gladly contribute toward the cost. She asked me to find out the exact cost and post it on Facebook. I did as she suggested and was stunned when someone from my church sent me a message saying she and her husband wanted to pay the entire bill. I did not know this family very well, and they were very willing to pay a $1,500 medical bill on our behalf. I knew our insurance was accepted at the other hospital because my other two children had spent their first week or two of life in that NICU. However when the insurance was notified that we were paying for our son to be transported to the other NICU, they said they wouldn't pay his medical bills at the other hospital because the billing would be too complicated. The medical staff submitted an appeal on the basis that I was providing our baby's milk, and they finally agreed to pay his medical bills at both hospitals. As the explanation of benefit documents began arriving in our mailbox, I was amazed to see that the insurance even paid for our ambulance ride. The Lord used the couple's offer to be the catalyst that brought me closer to the rest of my family, even though in the end they did not need to contribute a dime toward the expense. What a mighty God we serve!