be best to transfer him to a children’s hospital. Either the one in Omaha or
the one in Denver.”
Between us, we’d managed something like five nights’ sleep in fifteen
days. After more than two grueling weeks at Colton’s bedside, we had
nearly hit the road back to normal—with the elevator doors literally closing,
our family inside with balloons—when the whole thing crashed around us
again. And now, our son was back in excruciating pain with no end in sight.
We couldn’t even see a horizon.
Just when we thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did: a freak spring
snowstorm was moving into the Midwest. Within a couple of hours, thick
drifts of snow lay piled against the hospital doors and wheel-well high in the
parking lots. Whether we chose the children’s hospital in Omaha, eight
hours away, or Denver, three hours away, there would be no way short of
an airlift that we could reach either one.
That’s when Sonja lost it. “I can’t do this anymore!” she said and broke
down in tears.
And right about then was when a group of people in our church decided
it was time for some serious prayer. Church friends began making phone
calls, and before long, around eighty people had driven over to Crossroads
Wesleyan for a prayer service. Some were in our congregation and some
from other churches, but they had all come together to pray for our son.
Brad Dillan called me on my cell to tell me what was going on. “What,
specifically, can we pray for?” he asked.
Feeling a little odd about it, I told him what Dr. O’Holleran had said would
be a good sign for Colton. So that night might be the only time in recorded
history that eighty people gathered and prayed for someone to pass gas!
Of course, they also prayed for a break in the weather so that we could
get to Denver, and they prayed for healing too. But within an hour, the first
prayer was answered!
Immediately, Colton began to feel better. That evening, he was able to
use the bathroom. By the next morning, he was up in his room, playing as
though none of this nightmare had ever happened. Watching him, Sonja
and I couldn’t believe our eyes: except for being skinny, Colton was
completely and utterly himself again. In less than twelve hours, we had
cycled from completely desperate to completely normal.