04/22/2025
It was showtime for us at INDOUBT. The countdown was over, and we were tying up all the final details to record THE INDOUBT SHOW live at a sold-out Apologetics Canada conference here in Abbotsford, B.C.
That morning, while catching up with an old friend at our booth in the lobby, I started to feel a bit nauseous. I had to end our conversation short – I needed to get to a bathroom immediately. I had friends help me out of the bathroom because I could barely move, and after that, I was apparently drifting in and out of consciousness on a couch in the lobby. Next thing I knew, I was being loaded onto a stretcher and taken to the ER in an ambulance.
I spent fourteen hours in the hospital. Tests, then waiting. More tests, more waiting. When you’re there that long, you start to cycle through waiting rooms with the same group of people you came in with. Familiar faces become a kind of strange comfort.
As I slowly walked to the next waiting room, I spotted a woman across the room that caught my attention. I very clearly felt the Lord whisper to me, “Her. You are here for her.” My mom came to see me, and the two of us sat beside this lady. She began to share with us why she was there and all that she was going through. With hope in her eyes she said, “It’s going to be okay; God is with me. I am a Christian.” My mom and I lit up. “We’re Christians too!” I told her I used to be a pastor for many years and what I was up to now with INDOUBT. She asked me to pray for her. After we prayed, she was so encouraged. I told her what had happened to me and why I was at the hospital, and she said, “You are here for me. God knew I needed someone to come and encourage me, so He sent me you.” Wow! God did whisper to me that exact reality. He is so good.
The doctor finally saw me and ordered a CT scan of my brain to rule out a brain tumour, since I’d been experiencing intermittent vomiting for the past few weeks. As I sat in the waiting room, anxiously awaiting my results, an elderly lady and her daughter came in and sat directly across from us. The lady looked at me sternly as she was eating her food. She pointed her finger at me, and with no information on why I was there and what I was waiting for, said, “there is nothing wrong with your brain.” I starred at her in complete and utter shock. “Excuse me?” I asked. “There is nothing wrong with your brain. You have a stomach bug, and He has you in the palm of His hands.”
We went on to share story after story of God’s faithfulness in our lives. The other lady joined in, and we shared testimonies of God’s power and love. The cool thing was that everyone else in the waiting room was actively leaning in, asking questions, and engaged in what we were saying. Here I was thinking I missed out on doing ministry at the conference by getting sick, but God was in fact sending me on a mission to the ER to do ministry a little differently than I expected.
“And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” — Romans 8:28 (NIV)
God is in control of everything in our lives and works out all things for His good and His glory. God was glorified in my suffering and pain as I spent those 14 hours in the ER. We prayed for many people, shared stories with even more and left feeling so encouraged that God had me exactly where He wanted me, even if I didn’t want to be there myself. Just like the lady said, after many tests, days and weeks later, it was determined that it was, in fact, a stomach bug. She was also right in that God has me in the palm of His hand. Be encouraged today because the same is true for you, not the stomach bug, but being in His hands! The safest place you could be!
