Adapted from original story by Steve Theme

If we learn from our mistakes, I would be a genius. I was so certain prayer didn’t work that I never tried it for my first thirty-five years. Recently, in the Mexican sun, I suffered from heat exhaustion for three days.  By the third day, I couldn’t even lift myself from the floor, that is, until I said a simple prayer.

This wasn’t my first prayer.  Fifteen years ago my relationship with God, prayer, and faith changed dramatically.  But Mexico is hot in the summer; the dust is hot, the ground is hot, the shade is hot—it’s hot.  It was this extreme heat that brought me to that simple prayer and God’s simple answer.

The family of five we were building the home for lived in a one room shack, with no windows and a dirt floor.  When it rained outside, it rained inside.  There were three children, Rico, Jose, and Stephania. Though their mother was always present with a smile, we hardly saw her husband.  He worked fifteen hours a day in a shirt factory to provide for his family.  We caught a glimpse of him one morning as he was finishing the glaze to the slab of his family’s new home; he had spent all night applying it!

When day five came, we were down to the wire.  Typically, if a group doesn’t complete the home, another follows behind and finishes it.  But since we were the last group at Rosarito for the year, we had to finish.  Yet as the sun positioned itself above, I started to fade. My head and stomach went into a spinning dance, while my arms and legs could hardly move.

At this point I figured the “mission” part of the mission trip was over for me.  I sank.  At the moment when the family needed me the most, I could only lay on top of the garbage in our van.  Once I got over my sense of failure, I prayed: “God, this is our last day here, and there is still so much work to do.  How can I help?”

A rhetorical prayer, I thought.  When I opened my eyes, I noticed the van’s dome light wasn’t spinning and my stomach was quieting down.  Suddenly, I could feel my energy and strength returning to normal.  My disbelief pushed the question “What’s happening?”

I continued to lay there a bit making sure I wasn’t hallucinating.  Then I sat up easily and was quickly filled with simple acceptance.  I don’t recall even saying thank you.  I just rose, walked back to the job site, and worked for the next five hours through the heat of the afternoon.

Rico, Jose, Stephania and their parents must have needed the house finished that day.  After surviving many trials, they deserved a new home.

Thirty-five years spent closing the door on God’s love, but He is still right there every time I seek Him.  God is always with us.  We just recognize it some days more than others.