From Donna Williams Spiller, member of Redeemer OPC

This week’s Prayer Meeting and Bible Study focused on one symptom of the current pandemic -fever. Elder Ben read several Bible passages, one from Luke’s account of how Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law from a high fever, reminding us that Jesus is the Great Physician.

One day when my son was seven, he became violently ill. His fever was so high he began hallucinating.

We were visiting my in-laws at the time. Usually, around nine o’clock in the evening, we would have traveled the forty-five minutes back to my parents’ house, where we always stayed overnight on our visits from Vermont to Long Island, NY, but this night that fever was so high, we decided to stay put. My mother-in-law, Edith, lived within ten minutes of her doctor and a hospital.

We settled my son on a sofa in the den and set up a cot for me so that I could stay near him during that long, scary night. Every time I reached out to my little boy I knew his fever was rising. It was the first time I came face to face with the reality of someone burning with fever, and as he cried out in delirium, I prayed for wisdom – was it safe to wait till morning to call the doctor?

I knew that in the next room, Edith was also praying fervently. Midnight came. One A.M. Two A.M. My son’s body kept getting hotter and hotter. I’d doze off for a few minutes, wake at his mutterings and groanings, and reach out to touch his forehead. How could his little body be this hot? He was on fire! I prayed more urgently, then dozed off.

I awoke again – this time because of the silence – and reached out to touch his forehead. It wasn’t as hot as it had been, and my son was sleeping peacefully. I looked at the clock. It was twelve minutes past three A.M. I felt a peace come over me, and I knew that, though he was still sick, we didn’t have to rush him to the hospital, we could wait till morning to take him to Edith’s doctor.

Around six A.M. I left my son’s bedside and headed to the kitchen for a cup of coffee. Edith heard me and came out of her room. She asked how her grandson was, and I told her he was doing better. When we shared how we had each been praying through the night, she told me that at twelve minutes past three, she had awakened and felt such a peace, she knew his fever had gone down and that she could get a few hours of restful sleep.

She and I took my son to her doctor when his office opened. He saw a huge abscess in my son’s ear and prescribed antibiotics. The abscess cleared up. And another huge blessing was that my mother-in-law and I had been brought closer together as sisters in Christ. For each of us to have experienced such a powerful reminder of God’s presence and the healing power of Jesus and the peace of the Comforter at exactly the same moment in time – well, it was awe-inspiring. In time, we each came to believe that God’s peace is what had awakened us at twelve minutes after three A.M., letting us know it was safe to wait till daylight, that our little boy could rest easy and not have to go through the turmoil of a trip to the E.R.

So, what have I to add to this story? I’d like to say my faith never wavered after that night. How could it? But it did waver. I had many rough years and eventually I turned away from God. I doubted my salvation. But over and over, again and again, with all my questions to God asking Him, “Am I really your child?”, I kept going back to the times – including that long scary night – that I had felt the presence of the Holy Spirit and ultimately nothing could convince me that I wasn’t His child. In God’s time and in many ways, He assured me of His love and of my salvation. Praise be to God.