Is God a God who cares about me? Does He even know I exist? God may seem far away or maybe uninterested in us and what we go through in our lives. But in recent weeks God has made Himself and how much He cares for us known through a little boy named Ryan Coalwell. Ryan, two and a half years old came down with a deadly lung infection and was flown out to St. Charles Hospital in Bend on a recent Saturday. He was in critical condition, struggling for every breath. Several times over the next few days, it appeared to those tending to his care that he was not getting any better and the possibility that he could die grew each day he was on the respirator. Three times in four days, he stopped breathing. He spent those four days on a respirator and in a medically induced coma.

Trevyn, Ryan’s older brother was also admitted through the ER in Bend for the same lung infection. He spent five days in the hospital, became well enough he was then released.

Family members gathered at the hospital, trying to give support, encouragement and prayers for God to hear and help Ryan who remained in Critical Care. Tuesday morning, St. Charles Hospital debated whether to send him on to Portland. The family gathered with their pastor around Ryan’s bed, anointed him for healing, quoting the Scripture in James 5:12 that says, “If any of you are sick, he should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up.”

Later that morning, as the doctors were reducing his medicine to bring him out of the coma, the question was on everyone’s mind, would Ryan be OK? Could he breathe on his own? That afternoon, he began to move his arms and legs. Family members would ask him a question and he would nod is head, understanding and responding to their question. He even smiled.

The next few days, Ryan made a remarkable, even miraculous recovery. Wednesday he was taken off the respirator. Thursday he left Critical Care and put in a regular patient room, with constant care as his lungs continued to heal and his lost strength renewed.

Today, Ryan is home and recovering well. Mom and dad, sisters and brother, are extremely grateful for a God who cares. Through a patient website called CaringBridge, family, church and friends were updated with the day to day progress and some times regress of Ryan’s journey to recovery. But the astounding encouragement for the family were the notes of support and the prayers of people all over the county, even all over the world. People sought the power of God, and the love of God to reach out to this family in crisis. And God showed that He heard the prayers of many people. God showed that He cared for the Coalwells and the Komning families, and He showed that He cares for each one of us. God answered with divine intervention and healing; but also answered with His divine strength and comfort to sustain us through hard times.

God showed us that He cared for us long before Ryan ever got sick. God sent His Son Jesus to take all our sins upon Himself, the sins that would have brought eternal death to us, He took them upon Himself and died in our place. He died on the cross for our sins. He loves us that much. He loves us and desires the best for us. We only need to call on His name, to call on Jesus, who loves us. May we know through every circumstance of life that God is there to walk with us, to help us go through the joyous times and the hard times of life and bring us through. God loves you.

Dan Wiese is the pastor of John Day Church of the Nazarene.