Good post, I agree with everything you say above.. but I also think God is real to us in more tangible ways sometimes.
Someone who was in a bad motorcycle accident shared his testimony at my church recently. He was on a motorcycle, he was hit by a young girl in a pickup truck.
Four years before this he had to go into the hospital for a month and his wife left him while he was in the hospital. No one from his (previous) church came to visit him during this time.
He had gotten re-married about 8 months before this accident. His new wife had lost her previous husband to MS about 2 years previously. The collision was head on, it's a miracle he is still alive.
Both arms, both legs, six ribs, his pelvis and sternum were all broken and fractured. His left wrist was shattered into 12 pieces. His spleen was also removed due to internal bleeding. He was knocked unconscious in the accident.
At the beginning of his testimony he asked - Were is God when this happens to His children?
It just so happened that 2 cars behind him was a fireman/paramedic who had just gotten off duty and saw the accident happen, we was already patching him up before
the ambulance was even called. Normally they don't patients from this remote area into the trauma centers, they are normally taken by ambulance, but at 7:30am
the traffic is pretty bad going into the city, however it just so happened a care flight helicopter was returning from dropping off another patient and overheard the call, they
flew him into the city (it took less than 12 minutes, by ambulance it could have been over an hour). He was unconscious in the hospital for a week. He didn't even remember
he had been in an accident. His new wife came to visit him everyday for most of the day. At least a dozen people from our church came to visit him. He was in the hospital
for over two months. During this time he got to know many of the nurses, some were believers, some weren't. He got to know things about them and struggles they were having.
He started praying for them. Some had their faith renewed, some saw answered prayers, a couple even got saved. Because of the faithfulness in his new wife, he trusted her
more and more everyday, he learned to really love and appreciate her during this time. She fed him (both hands were in casts) changed his clothes and washed him. She even shaved him.
(Of course the nurses did this also, but it's not the same as having someone who loves you do it for you). The Mormon chaplain who was actually planning on doing his last rites
ceremony if he didn't pull through renounced Mormonism and got saved. Because of the faithfulness of members of the church coming to visit him while he was in the hospital
his faith in the church was renewed. He is still very good friends with many of them today. Even when he came home, he could not walk for a couple of months, his wife pushed him
in the wheelchair everyday. She kept taking care of him. People from church brought dinner over for them occasionally. One morning nearly 3 and half months after his accident, his
wife wheeled him into the church, they were a little late and the worship service had already started. The pastor stopped the singing, he announced to the congregation that this
person was in the service. People from all over the church came and hugged him, shook his hand and congratulated him on his recovery. Many people who had been praying for him
were in tears. After 10 minutes or so, the service started back up. After the service I overheard him say "I never felt so loved in my life". He was in tears himself. His insurance
only paid for a limited number of physical therapy visits. (He had to learn how to walk all over again). Some of the physical therapists kept coming even though they weren't getting paid.
One told him, he had never done that before in 12 years of being a therapist, he asked him why he did it this time. He said he didn't know.
At the end of his testimony he said he looked back and remembered the EMT who just happened to be in the right place at the right time, and the helicopter that just happened to be in the right place at the right time, the physical therapists who kept coming even when they didn't get paid to do so. He looked back on the nurses he prayed for and some even prayed for him. He looked back on the people in the church who came to visit him, and the service where "he felt so loved" (quite different from his previous church) and his faithful wife (quite different from his previous wife) and
how they've grown so close together in such a short time. The fact that he is even alive to tell this story. He still has many scars, but he is walking now. This happened less than a year ago.
His wife told me one day that she had her faith in God restored because he was faithful and didn't take away her second husband in less than 3 years.
Then he looked out over the congregation and asked... Where was God in all of this?
It makes you think... maybe He is around us a lot more than we give Him credit for.
