What started as a simple plan to make me smile turned into a divine reminder that God still shows up ~ even when the storm keeps raging. The video below is more than laughter in a coffee shop; it’s a glimpse of how Jesus still steps into the chaos and reminds us we’re not alone. This is the story behind that moment ~ one filled with heartbreak, faith, and unexpected grace.

Having a medically fragile child takes a special kind of strength ~ a strength you don’t even know exists until you have no choice but to survive, navigate, advocate, and eventually surrender it all to God.

Since returning from Boston, clinging to hope for my child, I’ve been knocked down more times than I can count. Every setback felt like another step up an even steeper hill. Two weeks after we came home, we had a follow-up appointment that went nothing like we expected. We were met with resistance, uncertainty, and hesitation ~ told that Logan’s case might be too complex for their team to handle.

We weren’t turned away, but we weren’t accepted either. We were told:

“While you wait, you may want to look into these other facilities…”

Cleveland Clinic.
Cincinnati Children’s.
Mayo Clinic.
Children’s Specialized.

Phone call after phone call, I was told the same thing ~ “Logan’s case is too complex, and he’s on a G-tube. We can’t accept children with feeding difficulties.”

Mind you, these are inpatient medical facilities ~ some of the most prestigious in the country ~ yet my child was "too complex."

I was told to call Kennedy Krieger instead. “They can help,” they said.

Hope hung on by a thread ~ through limited options, fear, and exhaustion. I kept reassuring Logan that we were doing everything we could. That we were fighting for him.

But we weren’t just fighting the medical system ~ we were fighting the insurance system.
We weren’t just fighting the school ~ we were fighting the district for accountability.

We fought. We prayed. We clung to faith that God is mighty and that He has a plan.

Flipped Tables and Fragile Faith

Over the weeks, my perspective began to change. Even the little things began to shift. The pain was raw ~ I felt helpless, defeated, angry, terrified. This is the world we live in. This is the broken system. A hospital that failed to treat my son by medical standards would get away with it all, and that injustice set this entire year in motion.

During Sunday service, our pastor preached about God flipping over tables every time we think we have it figured out. I laughed ~ because that’s what this entire year has been like. One closed door after another. One flipped table after the next.

And now, as we approach the one-year mark, my child still hasn’t received the care he so desperately needs.

That morning, even getting to church was hard. He didn’t know how to dress himself. I met Andrew there twenty minutes later, Logan’s head resting on my shoulder the whole time. At the end of service, he went to the altar ~ and to his knees he fell before a mighty God.

Andrew and I followed behind him, tears streaming. Our daughter cried from another row as she was held by her “big sister.” Hands laid gently on Logan’s back and ours as the praise team sang. I held his face in my hands, tears falling, whispering:

“God has a plan. He is faithful.”

From Medicine to Ministry

Just last week, as we were waiting for test results, Andrew asked me a simple question that somehow sent me spiraling into tears. He was confused by how we’d gone from point A to 132, but the thing that struck him most was what I said in the middle of my breakdown:

“Of all the years I have lived, I wouldn’t go back to my teens, 20s, or even 30s. I would go back and do this year all over again.”

He couldn’t believe it. How?

Because this was the year God showed up ~ powerfully, personally, and persistently.
He showed up in our family.
In our ministry.
In our marriage.
In our home.

When my faith was no more than a mustard seed, God used my husband to carry the flame. He took me into the wilderness, stripped me down until I had nothing left but Him. He taught me to trust His faithfulness, to believe He is a good Father, and to know He would not abandon us.

When you grow up in chaos ~ groomed by addiction, abuse, and neglect ~ trust doesn’t come easy. But when it’s all you have left, you learn to trust the One whose love never fails.

God took me from medicine to ministry, from confusion to clarity. He’s been preparing me for what’s next: Family Wellness.
Breaking generational curses.
Healing what I never had.
And doing it through His strength, not mine.

The Storm Within the Storm

In the past week, we’ve faced more setbacks. Logan’s health continues to decline. His feeding difficulties should have landed him in the ER multiple times, but he refuses to go because, in his words, “no one ever helps.” He's not wrong either. 

His cognition worsens each day. Though he’s still listed as an honors student, he can’t do second-grade math right now. Let that sink in. His six-year-old brother can do problems he can’t. The embarrassment and devastation he feels are heavy beyond words.

On October 10, 2025, we were told our son had a brain injury. Finally, it felt like there might be answers, a name for what we were seeing and he was living. But just weeks later, that hope was stripped away. We were told the testing was inconclusive and that there was nothing more they could do.

To make it worse, I had just been asked to share a testimony to help support a grant they applied for using my son’s story. They used our pain as a platform one day and dismissed him the next. The betrayal stung deeply.

Yesterday, during the meeting to review his results and discuss what we thought would be his brain injury and next steps we were left devastated. Logan cried on the floor beside me, I tried to ask questions ~ to get clarity, to advocate one more time. Instead, I was told, “You have one minute left.”

One minute.

As if sixty seconds could undo a year of trauma, neglect, and dismissal. I closed the computer, threw my notebook across the room.

I closed my computer, threw my notebook across the room, and collapsed to the floor as tears streamed down my face. Logan was already there, shaking beneath the blanket of my arm, sobbing, saying he was “done with all of this” and “just wishes God would come and take him.”

The cries that suffocate and choke you ~ the ones that come from a place deeper than words ~ echoed through the room. I felt his body trembling under my arm, and time stood still.

Where do we go from here?
How do I pick up the pieces?
How is this even possible?
God, where are You?
Why is everything so unfair?

I have never felt so helpless and defeated as I did in that moment. How do I pick myself up? How do I pick him up? How is our system so broken that, almost a year later, I am lying on the floor curled up next to my 15-year-old son, devastated by endless dead ends and dismissal?

My eyes were so swollen I could barely see. My stomach hurt. My head was pounding. I couldn’t even think straight. And to be honest, I wouldn’t have been sad if God took me out, too. I was exhausted, defeated, and wondering where my God was in this raging storm.

But God…

The next morning, I woke unsure how to move forward,  how to reassure my son when I had no answers left to give.

Andrew pulled me close and held me as the tears kept coming, the kind that leave your body weak, where words don’t even make sense anymore. His steadiness met my shaking, and he began to speak softly, reminding me of what I had forgotten in the storm.

He told me, “We get to rejoice.”
Not because everything is okay, but because of whose we are. Because even when life feels impossible, our identity in Christ doesn’t shift with the chaos.

He reminded me that perspective and heart matter more than anything, that gratitude is still possible even when peace feels far away. In his wisdom, he had become so deeply grounded in faith, a kind of faith that doesn’t shout, it steadies. He has become wise and steadfast, a spiritual anchor for our family and more importantly myself.

Then he brought up something I’d said just days before, the moment that had even shocked him. How I told him I would do this year all over again because of how clearly we’d seen God’s hand through it all. Because even in the wreckage, we’d seen redemption.

“God’s writing the story,” he said. “We’re just walking it out in obedience.”

Tears fell from both our eyes. I honestly don’t remember every word that came out of his mouth, but I remember the moment that stopped me in my scattered thoughts, the moment he reminded me to rejoice because Jesus is in the storm with us.

I could see it in my mind, the disciples in the boat, terrified as the waves crashed around them. But this time, the disciples were us. The storm was ours. And Jesus was still right there, calm and unwavering, reminding us that He never left.

Andrew reminded me that healing doesn’t happen in isolation, that we are surrounded by people who love us, even when we’re too overwhelmed to reach for them. That God had been using this year not just to test our faith, but to reshape it. To teach us what wellness really means, not the absence of pain, but the presence of peace in the middle of it.

As we ended in prayer, I looked at him through swollen eyes and said, “Can you please go get me coffee and breakfast from our favorite place... and oh, by the way, I’m going to need you to put your Buddy the Elf costume on.”

I planned to stay behind. We joked about the scene from the movie, the one where Buddy bursts into the coffee shop yelling while on his date. We laughed through the heaviness. Then I added, “Well, if you’re going to go, you’re going to have to play that scene out… and I’m going to record it.”

So, we did.

As we pulled out of the driveway, he in his elf costume, me with swollen eyes and exhaustion written all over my face, I promised I would stop crying for the day.

I walked into the coffee shop ahead of him, pretending to browse the menu as he approached the door in full Buddy mode. I hit record on my phone and started filming.
(Be sure to watch the video if you haven’t seen it yet.)

But God…

What was meant to be a quick trip to grab coffee turned into a four-hour reunion with our forever hockey family, friends we hadn’t seen in over a year. Life had just pulled us all in different directions, and outside of the occasional text or check-in, we hadn’t really connected.

They were sitting just around the corner, watching me film Andrew without realizing it was us at first. When they did, and I turned around to see them, I squealed through tears, in her loving embrace, overjoyed, overwhelmed, undone.

God already knew.

He knew what I needed more than anything: family, friendship, connection.
He knew I needed life to pause long enough to simply sit, to talk to another adult, to be honest, to be angry, to be seen.
To be loved just as I was - raw, emotional, exhausted, and beaten down. 

What started as a small act of love from a husband doing what ever he could to make me smile as helpless as he felt,  turned into water for my soul, fruit for my spirit, and the world’s best cup of coffee delivered by grace itself.

Reflection

I don’t know what tomorrow holds. I don’t know when the healing will come. But I do know that God met us there - in laughter, in tears, in the most ordinary cup of coffee. He’s still in the storm, and somehow, that’s enough.

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice.” — Philippians 4:4