Miracle on Dickinson Ave

Dickinson Avenue is always a bustling place - with 24 kids on our block (that is NOT a typo) there is always action. Nothing unusally exciting or out of the ordinary - just 24 kids running from house to house: a popsicle at one house, badmitton at another, wiffle ball across the street, then over to the trampoline, then back over to our side of the street to the slip 'n slide to get unsticky from the popsicle, and then to our backyard to the play fort. Like I said, exciting, but nothing unusual.


Until Monday. While talking on the phone about who knows what with Mom In Action I saw an ambulance with its lights on pull up in front of my house. And since there was no emergency in my house I ran outside to see which one of my neighbors called for an ambulance. As I walked outside, I saw a woman I did not know laying flat out in my next door neighbors lawn. As I watched the woman's friend give her chest compressions and then the paramedics use the paddles, the kids came outside to see what the commotion was, and I knew I had to take them inside and explain what was happening. And then we prayed.

(God is really stretching me in this area - praying for healing. Why does He heal some people and then choose to not heal others, even though I prayed so intently, and for so long? What if the kids and I pray and He lets her die - what then do I tell my kids? It's been a constant battle in my brain and spirit).

So, I thought to myself, "here goes nothin' " and went for it. The kids and I prayed fervently for God to breathe His breath of life back into her body (because by this time, she had no pulse). When we went back outside and sat on the stoop, I just began to sing a quiet prayer to the Lord. I questioned the Lord, "is it her time to go"? Should I be praying that you heal her? Everyone is saying that she's dead. Did she have family? Did she know Jesus? So, still in a singing kinda prayer I prayed for those things. Ella sat with me and listened. And watched.

The paramedics seemed to be moving slower. Two men opened the ambulance doors and they slowly lifted her body onto a stretcher and loaded back up into the ambulance. They left for the hospital, no lights, no sirens, no nothing. I went back into the house and said to the kids that I thought she had died. I tried my best to explain the very thing I struggle with - "why". And what I love about my kids is that they seemed unshaken by the news and said, "now she's with Jesus... and Pop Pop". Yep, it's seems so easy when you're 6 and 4.

An hour later our neighbor came over to our house and relayed to us the most wonderful news - the woman made it. She's alive! After four minutes, FOUR MINUTES, having no pulse, NO PULSE! SHE - IS - ALIVE! The paramedics said that if her friend hadn't done chest compressions on her before the ambulance arrived, she would have never made it.

Thank you Lord for doing a miracle on Dickinson Avenue - and allowing me and my children to be a part of it.