A Miracle, Thanks to Twitter Followers

I'm a little stunned this morning at a miracle that occurred this weekend, all because a bunch of people I don't know personally around the world prayed.

How do they know me?

Well, they follow me on Twitter.

Saturday started out normally, with one exception. Our little boy Neil was exceptionally grumpy. He fussed. He yelled at us when we asked him simple questions like, "Neil, what would you like for breakfast?" In short, the kid was out of control.

After about two hours of this, it occurred to me that this was out-of-ordinary behavior for the little guy, especially on a sunny summer weekend morning. I put the back of my hand to his forehead. He was poker-iron hot.

For the rest of the day, we cuddled in the recliner, ate Popsicles, drank a lot of fluids, pumped in children's Tylenol and watched DVDs.

But by Saturday night, Neil was as limp as a yarn doll and hotter than ever.

"Let's take him to the E.R.," I said to Brent.

"He'll be uncomfortable at the E.R. We'll sit for hours, and they'll tell us to go home and give him fluids."

"But what if he really needs to go?"

Brent was worried, too. He gazed at Neil, who was by now sleeping in my arms on the sofa. "Let's give it a couple more hours. If we get up in the middle of the night, or if we make it through the night and he's still the same, we'll go."

In my angst, I put out a few updates on Twitter, saying that Neil was sick and that we were considering going to the E.R.

I started getting responses from people. They were concerned. They said they were praying for Neil.

It was a simple thing, really, just a bunch of strangers expressing sympathy, I thought.

We stayed awake with Neil until 3 a.m. He woke, slept, woke. He chatted languidly as we surfed the Web and looked at photos of Disney World and played games on Pogo. The people on Twitter continued to send me little words of encouragement and notes about prayer.

And then ... Neil just fell asleep.

I put my hand to his forehead.

It was cool.

The next morning ... it was cool.

Maybe it was just a passing virus, you might say.

If I weren't a believer, I would say the same thing.

But if you had been holding this sick child, fretting as I was, you most likely would agree that a small miracle had taken place.

Neil is up and around this morning, doing his boy stuff, eating Eggo's waffles and bananas and talking to himself as he makes up stories with his stuffed animals who are his pals.

And as a mother, I thank everyone on Twitter who prayed in the depths of the night on Saturday for my little boy.

Coincidence?

I think not.

I think your prayers made a difference.

Thank you.