Today God was talking to me even in the car on the way to church. My 13 year old daughter was looking up out the van window (I thought at the sky) on the way to church. These were her words to me. "Mom do you know that God knew all along what he was doing even a along time ago". I asked her, " Lauren what do you mean. She said, " God must have made those birds and squirrels feet out of rubber so that when they run up and down those power lines they don't get shocked and die." Lauren has always been an amazing child whose thought process has always amazed and amused me. She has always had a great memory until 7 years ago when she became very sick. She began running a fever of 104 one day. The doctor said she had strep throat and sent her home. The next day she woke up she had red spots over her entire body, even on the bottom of her feet and the palms of her hand. She was still running a 104 fever and she only wated to lay around all the time. Her doctor was not in town that day so I took her to a different doctor. He said that she must be allergic to the medicine so he changed her medicine and sent her home. The third and fourth day now she is still running a high fever of 104, her red spots have not gone and she still continued to lay around. I call to see her doctor, but she is leaving at 12:00 that day to go out of town. My sister is a nurse in a hospital about thirty minutes from our house and she tells me to bring her down to let one of the ER doctors look at her. She is not running a fever when I get to the hospital because we have been altering Tylenol and Ibuprofen every four to six hours. The ER doctor says, well she's not running a fever so maybe the other medicine she is taking is now beginning to work. She fell asleep on the way home that night, but when she awoke the next morning her fever was back up to 104 and her red spots were still completely over her entire body. On Monday morning after eight days of running a high fever of 104, she was admitted to the hospital. After several tests the doctor informed me that her liver function was elevated and after giving her a spinal fluid test the doctor ruled out meningitis, but she did have encephalitis.Being a special educator, I knew very well what problems encephalitis could cause to my child. The doctor still didn't know what was causing the high fever and the red spots over her entire body. She took her off all the medicine, began giving her IV fluids and began running several tests on her. After two days in our local hospital, she was sent by ambulance to Egleston children's hospital in Atlanta. Egleston's symbol for their hospital is a beautiful colorful RAINBOW. She was put into a room with a note on her door "Infection Control" All people entering should completely dress in coats, gloves and masks. Of course my husband and other family members did not have to because we had already been exposed to her illness. My husband stayed during the day and went home in the evening to be with our other three chidren. I sat in the rocking chair in Lauren's room and watched my six year old just lay there still running a fever with spots over her entire body, and not wanting to eat, she was having to wear a diaper and had several IV's of medicine running through her. By the 12th day of her sickness, her veins could not take anymore IV's so they had to insert a pic-line. This was a scary procedure for her and us. The people at the hospital and the people in my hometown were all praying for her. One school even had her name taped on their desks to remember her in prayer . On the 13th day, the doctor's were still waiting on results so everything that they thought that Lauren might have, she was on Medicine for in the hospital. I had a peace the whole time I was with Lauren in her hospital room, but I was getting anxious not knowing what was wrong. I did not have my bible with me at the hospital, but I knew God was in my heart. I prayed to God and I asked him, God I know you healed a man in the bible who had leprosy by telling him to go wash in the water seven times. My daughter can not get up to go get in the water in the bathroom, but I have this wet washcloth in my hand and I am going to wash over Lauren's body with it seven times because I beleive that You can heal her if you so desire. The next morning when Lauren awoke, her fever was gone and all of her red spots were gone. GOD IS AWESOME. We were able to take Lauren downstairs in a wagon at the hospital to an arts and crafts activity they had for the children in the hospital. She was really to exhausted to do anything, but she enjoyed being able to get out of her hospital room of confinement. While we were downstairs the doctor came and found us and told us to return to our room. We didn't know what was going on. The doctor told us that we could take Lauren home and she would continue on her medicine for two to three weeks. Lauren would need to stay out of school for about a month and should visit a physical therapist until she could regain her strength. As I was getting Lauren ready to go home I was preparing her things and worrying about the road ahead of us now when we got home. In my mind I was thinking, "how much has this encephalitis affected her brain, How long will it take for her to walk and run again, how much as she forgotten as a result of this brain swelling". God had just performed a miracle within her hospital room and I was still worrying. Lauren had not spoken much during the two weeks of her illness and I remember complaining before she got sick how much I wish she would just be quiet so I could think. Now I wanted her to talk so I could know that everything was going to be allright. The nurse walked in our hospital room and handed me a box of markers. She told me since it was time for Lauren to leave she could draw a picture on one of the tiles on the bathroom wall before she left. You see all of the children at Egleston get to draw a picture on the tile the day they leave. Lauren took her markers out of the box and God talked to me as she began her drawing. Lauren used just about every color in the box to draw a RAINBOW. For those of you who learned the correct order of the colors of the RAINBOW you know the acronym ROY G BIV. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet. Guess What Lauren remembered it too, When she drew that RAINBOW -God told me that Everything was going to be O.K.. A week after Lauren came home from the hospital-The doctor called to let us know the test results-"Lauren had had Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever" We had been home one day from our vacation in Tennessee when Lauren had got sick, but My son had not told us that he had pulled a tick of of her until later." Lauren couldn't remember how to spell her name when she returned to school and even today at 13 she forgets how to spell simple words, but she has a love and compassion and wisdom way beyond her years that I wouldn't trade for anything in the world. Today on the way home in the pouring down rain, I was singing along with my country Christian CD-My favorite song Amazing Grace when all of a sudden the rain started slowing down, the sun began to shine out of the cloud filled sky and Lauren said," Mom we are going to get to see the sun set". I said Yes!! Right in the midst of these dark clouds everywhere. I was driving trying to turn my head around so I could see the beautiful SUN bursting through all of those clouds. The sky was so amazing because the darkness was just turning into such a bright orange-yellowish glow It was almost blinding. Then all of a sudden when the SUN BURST completely made it through the clouds TWO Huge, MAGNIFICENT, AMAZING, BEAUTIFUL, RAINBOWS lit up the sky in front of us and stretched all the way across the sky. We were so excited and in so much AWE of how GOD still puts HIS sign in the sky to REMIND us AGAIN when we are feeling down that Everything is going to be O.K. My CD at this time when the RAINBOWS appeared was playing "HOW GREAT THOU ART" I just smiled and said GOD you truly ARE. MY Kellianna will not get to come home to us from Guatemala, but God is still with me and He CONTINUES to Send ME HIS RAINBOWS EVEN IN MY DARKEST HOURS to remind me EVERYHING IS GOING TO BE O.K. WE LOVE YOU KELLIANNA WHEREVER YOU ARE!!! MAY GOD SEND HIS RAINBOWS TO YOU DURING YOUR LIFETIME YO LET YOU KNOW THAT HE WILL TAKE CARE OF YOU ALWAYS!!
