Soul Food November 2006

From “Warm Beverages and Cowboy Emergencies,” from Laura Marie Wells’ A Marian Bible Study: Bringing Scripture to Life for Moms, pp. 23-24:

When I was twelve weeks pregnant with our youngest child, John, I was unexpectedly put on complete bed rest due to blood clots. My wonderful sister-in-law, Philecia, volunteered to come with her three-year-old son to take care of my two young girls and me while my husband was at work and while he was deployed for a month. Her husband was out to sea for six months, and she said she’d love the company.

She hurried to join us, arriving in our home just a few hours after she received word of my condition. The next three months were filled with – as she called them – warm beverages and cowboy emergencies. Together, over a cup of tea, we laughed, cried, commiserated, prayed, and rejoiced at God’s goodness and his hand in our lives. My nephew offered much comic relief by his antics. One of his favorite games (and mine to watch) was running around the house in a cowboy hat, yelling “COWBOY EMERGENCY!” He soon had my daughters joining with him in his antics. Although being on bed rest was one of my difficult crosses, God used that time to bond my sister-in-law and me together in a deep, lasting, sisterlike friendship.