Fish Oil and Batteries

Sorry, this is going to be long. I cannot let this day go by without sharing the ways in which we are being “held” by our loving Heavenly Father. I feel so inadequate. I just don’t have the right words to convey how we feel and all that has taken place.

Yesterday was hard. I explained some of it in the post I made late last night but I didn’t share everything. Aaron called my parents late yesterday afternoon to see if they wanted to bring something over for him to grill for dinner. We do this often during the spring/summer…but yesterday he called them because he knew I had not had time to plan anything for dinner (as I mentioned I had basically been on the phone all day) and he knew that their company would be a welcome distraction for me. I was a little grumpy when they got to our house, but as I shared with my mom what was going on and the trouble we were having with locating batteries for the oxygen concentrator I began to relax. My mom helped me prepare dinner, and then at one point, unbeknownst to me, she was talking to my oldest son about it and they decided to pray for batteries right then.

I’m going to backtrack a little now to give you some history. Three weeks ago I went to CVS to pick up some things for our trip. When in China, it is customary to give gifts to certain officials, guides, and sometimes nannies that have cared for your child. On this particular day, CVS had  their Fish Oil vitamins buy one get one free so I decided to knock out some of my gifts by purchasing 6 bottles (the Chinese love American vitamins and fish oil is highly regarded so it makes a great gift). When I got home, I brought in the bags from CVS and put them on the kitchen table, where I admit they sat for several days J Once I got tired of the kitchen table being covered I moved these to our “packing station”, where we had our suitcases and other items we were planning on taking. Well last Saturday I began organizing our “packing station” and realized I could not find the fish oil. For 5 days I have looked for these vitamins. I had Aaron look for the vitamins. I had my kids look for the vitamins. And I couldn’t find them anywhere. Well last night, as I complained/shared my day with my mom I also mentioned that I could not find the stinking fish oil that I had bought to take as gifts and that I guessed I was going to have to go buy some more. My mom and dad recruited the kids and they began looking all over the house again and my dad even offered to give $5 to whoever found them (money is a great encourager for my kiddo’s). While they were looking, my parents also stopped at one point to pray that if the vitamins were in the house that we might be able to find them. We never found the vitamins.

On to today…I made several more phone calls concerning the batteries and ran into a wall at every turn. I prayed about it several times, but honestly, it felt wrong to pray about it. I know this is not Biblical, but I actually felt bad asking God for anything else! Aaron and I talked about it throughout the day as I filled him in on what I was finding out from each person/vendor/representative and we decided/made a plan that if we had not secured batteries by late this afternoon that we would need to just rent a different portable oxygen concentrator with the required number of batteries, which was going to cost $1900. We were running out of time to even be able to get a machine to us so we had to make a decision.

At 1:00 this afternoon, I got a call. I almost didn’t answer it because it was from Arizona and I was in the middle of making pizza’s with the boys. On the other line was a nice man named Leo who worked at OxyMed, which was one of the places I had called and left a message at yesterday. I explained our situation, how we needed 6 batteries for this particular portable oxygen concentrator and we needed them in less than a week. I fully expected him to say he was sorry but he didn’t have that many, or that it would cost about $1500-$1600 because that is what we were hearing from other suppliers. I don’t know why I was shocked, why I would even doubt that this was my answer to prayer, but I almost fell over when he said the total cost, shipping and all, would be $480 and that he could have them to me by Monday. I have never been so happy to spend $480!!!!!!!!! My Heavenly Father, the one who created me, who created you, who created my very sick little boy in China, wanted to show me that He cares about EVERY LITTLE DETAIL and that there is never anything too big or too small for Him.

There is more…as I cried (just a little) and explained to Leo that he was an answer to prayer, he thanked me and said I had made his day. Then, he said, well since you believe in prayer, do you want to guess what my last name is? I was taken off guard by this question, but I said no, but tell me? He said my full name is Leo Angel. I just had to laugh. I actually didn’t believe him, but he assured me he was telling the truth. And later, I got an email confirmation from him regarding my favorite $480 purchase and indeed, his last name is Angel.

And still…there is more. My sweet hubby called me on the way home from mowing his dad’s grass (well, actually he just supervises while the boys mow the grass) and asked me if I had remembered to buy him some cough drops. He has had a dry cough the past few nights and we also wanted to have some to take to China because of the pollution. I told him I had forgotten, but that I would go to our favorite CVS store after dinner and get some because I also wanted to buy some more fish oil. After dinner, I ran to the drug store, found the cough drops, snatched up some fish oil, and headed to the counter. The girl at the checkout counter looked familiar, and although this was not planned, I decided to ask if they had, by chance, found a bag of fish oil pills that may have been left at the store. Again…why do I doubt? I kid you not, this sweet check out girl said, “You are not going to believe this but I have had that bag of fish oil pills up here for over 2 weeks and I just put them back on the shelf today because I decided that maybe you weren’t coming back for them!” She remembered me…she had been the one to check me out when I had purchased those gifts. She knew I was going to China because we had joked about why I would be purchasing so many OTC medicines and fish oil. She knew that I needed those vitamins and she had held them at the counter for me all this time. And, she told me to take what I had in my basket, that there would be no charge. I squealed just a little, I admit. But I somewhat held it together because I wanted to SCREAM!

In less than 24 hours, my God provided batteries and fish oil. He answers prayer. He loves His children. I am overwhelmed...and He deserves all the glory.