God Used a Penny

“God Used a Penny”   a true account …….

 Four years ago in October……

“Mommy! I swallowed a penny! I don’t know why, it just went down!”

Our 4-year-old granddaughter ran to her mother shouting those words. Now, this sweet, precocious little girl never put things in her mouth, even as a young baby, so this was very unusual.  After a quick call to the doctor, he advised just to watch to see that it passed through.

A few days later after not finding the penny, they made another call to the doctor.

“Well, we don’t routinely do an x-ray, but bring her in and we’ll do one just to make sure it isn’t lodged in the intestines somewhere.”

The x-ray did not show a penny, but it did reveal a fuzzy image of something attached to the spine. Strange! What could it be? After further tests, it was determined that it was a tumor on the spine suspected as Ganglio Neuroblastoma, an aggressive children’s cancer. They couldn’t be sure until they did surgery. The medical plan was to do surgery to biopsy it, place a chemo port into the tumor to shrink it, and then on a second surgery, try to remove the tumor.

Doctor’s told the parents not to go on the internet, but I did!  What I found, I didn’t like! There had been no symptoms at that point, but until they could decide through surgery just what they were up against, the future was unknown.  The phone calls to friends and their church prayer chains along with all the grandparents’ churches and friends’ connections made a difference knowing that so many people were praying for our granddaughter.!

Parents going through tough health issues with kids have a hard time emotionally, physically and mentally.  You wish you could trade places with the child so they didn’t have to suffer. I , now, have a new empathy for those parents and grandparents. It is only your faith in the Lord that gets you through these trials along with the prayers of other believers.

I don’t want to leave you hanging on for the results, but I do need to go back to just a couple of months before this happened. You may know, if you have followed my blog, that I hold an Oma and Opa Camp for my grandkids. We do crafts, field trips, songs, games and  have a wonderful time with the kids – no parents! This granddaughter’s favorite song that year was “Our God is a Great, Big God and He Holds Us in His Hand”! She sang it over and over at camp and she would sing it to the top of her lungs with her beautiful voice.  OK, now back to the story…….

Surgery began and instead of putting the port in, the doctor thought he could remove the tumor and began to peel it off . He was able to remove it completely! After testing, it was truly determined to be Ganglio Neuroblastoma. Had it gone any longer, the fingers would have wrapped around the spine completely making it nearly impossible to remove.  No chemo was required! Praise God!

In the Intensive Care room, our granddaughter sang, “Our God is a Great, Big God and He Holds us in His Hand!” She may have been to young to fully realize what God had done in her life through a “penny”, but we will remind her of the “God Penny”! God has something special planned for this little girl. Now, she is 8 years old and has had no reoccurrence! She loves Jesus and continues to sing songs of praise to Him!

We know that not everything always turns out the way we want, but we are thankful for this “God intervention” through a simple penny!  Everytime we see her, that song runs through my mind. By the way, the penny is engraved with “In God We Trust”

Just wanted to close with this verse…. 

 “We will tell the next generation the praiseworthy deeds of The Lord.”  Psalm 78:46

At this Thanksgiving season, we hear the phrase,” Give Thanks! ”  I’m always frustrated that it doesn’t end with Give Thanks to God! Be thankful for all that God has done in your life this Thanksgiving season. Direct your thanks and praise to Him!

Continuing to Praise God! 

Phyllis

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