On the 8th Day of Christmas Past, Ron Millburn (MHA Tour Guide) shares a treasured Christmas:
Question: How was an absolute knowledge that prayers are answered felt in today’s story?
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Christmas 1995
By Ron Millburn, MHA Tour Guide
The Christmas season of 1995 proved to be as severe and bleak as any I had ever known. Mountains of hospital bills were piling up from chemo treatments, bone marrow transplants, radiation, and surgeries. The miracle for which I had been fasting and praying, along with so many others, was not happening; and my wife, Harriett, was only getting worse. It was on Christmas Eve when we drove to the Emergency Room at LDS Hospital, she having felt a terrible pain in her stomach. Three days later she underwent another surgery. She had a wonderful oncologist, and it was with glistening eyes that he told me that they just had to close her up, for there was nothing more they could do; her time on this earth would soon come to an end.
The first week in December of that Christmas season I remember sitting down with Louise (probably not her name) at LDS Hospital. She worked with patients’ financial concerns and insurance companies. Harriett had worked as a clerk in the Federal Court System in downtown Salt Lake City and had very good insurance, and yet I was informed that we had accumulated a $70,000 bill over the past year. Not having that amount of money available, we were put on a contract to pay so much a month for the remainder of our lives (at least that’s the way it seemed to me).
After we left that depressing meeting we had Christmas facing us, and kids who still expected Santa to be as generous as he had always been.
The next day, Saturday, we went to the South Towne Mall to do some Christmas shopping. Our most expensive purchase was a number of computer games that were the latest and greatest that 1995 could produce. When we got home and unloaded the car, we could not find the computer games. They were in a black plastic bag, and after thoroughly searching the trunk of the car, we came to the conclusion that they never made it home. So back to the mall we went.
I first went to the “Lost and Found” to find no one had found them, or at least no one had turned them in. Next, we retraced our steps, going to each store and looking around and inquiring if anyone had turned in a black plastic bag full of computer games. No one had.
Deseret Book was the last store we checked. (Deseret Book was in the mall at the time.) No luck. Discouraged, we sank down onto a bench in front of the store. Here we were, with $70,000 in medical bills to pay, and then we splurge to buy computer games for our children for Christmas, and then we lose them. I think we were both feeling about as rock-bottom low as a person can go.
As we sat there, a thought came into my head. Heavenly Father knows where those computer games are. And so I said a prayer in my head something like this: “Heavenly Father, it’s really tough for us right now. Harriett has this cancer that won’t go away; we have medical bills there is no way we can pay; and now we’ve spent money we don’t have to purchase some computer games we just lost. We have looked everywhere and done everything we can to recover them, but have not found them. You know where they are. Please tell me.”
And He did. I immediately knew where they were. I grabbed Harriett’s hand and we went back to the Hallmark Store. We had been there before and had searched the store, and had asked the clerk if a black bag of computer games had been turned in, and she had said no. But I knew the games were in there somewhere because Heavenly Father had answered my prayer immediately with an unmistakable spiritual impression. We searched the store again, going up and down the aisles, but found nothing. Then I stood in line again and spoke to the same clerk.
“Remember me?” I asked.
“You’re the one who lost the computer games,” she said.
“Yes. And I know I left them in this store. Could you please look again to see if they’ve been turned in?”
She said she had been there the whole time and nothing had been turned in, but she looked again where they kept the “Lost and Found” and again found nothing. “I’m sorry,” she said, “but they’re just not here.”
“Yes, they are,” I said. “They’re here somewhere. Where else could they possibly have been placed?”
“I really don’t know. I’m sorry I can’t help you.” She was getting impatient because there was a line of people behind me.
“Is there anyone else in the store I can talk to?” I asked. Just then another employee came out of the back room.
“Ask her,” I said. “Jill (probably not her name), has anyone turned in a bag of computer games?”
“Were they in a black bag?”
“Yes!” I shouted.
“Just a minute.” She went into the back room, and then returned with our long-lost black bag of computer games. “Someone handed them to me as I was going into the back room and I forgot to put them with the Lost and Found,” she said.
As we left the store, Harriett asked, “How did you know?”
I just pointed up, because I couldn’t talk.
That was Saturday. Monday morning at work I called Louise because I had another insurance question for her. She said, “Just a minute. Let me look into your file.”
I waited for a while, and then I heard her say, “Oh, my goodness! No way. . . ” She then spoke to me, “I just discovered something about your insurance that you might be interested in. Did you know that your insurance . . . ?” Whatever words she used after the word “insurance” went right over my head.
“No,” I said. “What does that mean?”
“It means that any expenses over and above what your insurance company will pay will be assumed by the hospital.”
“You mean I don’t owe the hospital $70,000?”
“That’s right. You’re free and clear.”
“I’m glad I called,” I said. I was ignorant of that provision in Harriett’s insurance, as was Louise, and it could have cost us dearly. Another look through a bulging file of insurance papers revealed a very expensive Christmas gift for us that came at a very critical time in our lives. I was ignorant of the whereabouts of those computer games, but a desperate prayer sent heavenward, through the gift of the Holy Ghost, revealed the location of those gifts meant for our children.
In all of the many decades of Christmases I’ve lived through, no other Christmas comes close to this one in giving me an absolute knowledge that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ live, that the Holy Ghost is real, and that They love us and know us, and will answer our prayers, great or small. I felt as Francis Webster did in the Martin Handcart Company: “Every one of us came through with the absolute knowledge that God lives, for we became acquainted with Him in our extremities.” (Andrew D. Olsen, The Price We Paid, 424).
They found they didn’t have to ge be sitting at home or in church to pour our their souls to Him. Not only was there a feeling of peace when their prayers were answered/heard, there was a feeling of love. Often, we think of miracles as those big, life changing events, and what we often forget is that Heavenly Father cares about ALL aspects of our lives. Those things that may not matter in the eternity, matter to Him because they matter to us.
Heavenly Father showed them that he was there, that he knew them and cared about their feelings, their trials, their sorrows, and their needs. He answered their heartfelt prayers in their time of “extremities”, giving them an unforgetable assurance of his love and care.
Prayers are answered in different ways. Ron’s story is about miraculous answers that show God loves us. Yesterday, I was shown small tender mercies that showed the same thing.
God is aware of each of us. He led Ron to where the computer games were even though they had already checked there. The insurance coverage was surely an answer to prayer as it could’ve cost them dearly.
Ron was inspired to pray, and received an immediate answer to his prayer, and acted upon it! Heavenly Father loves us and answers prayers. Some immediately, and some later in His timing.
Ron had the faith that the Lord was the only one that knew for sure where those commuter games were. Once he got his answer he didn’t give up & certainly didn’t doubt the Lord. The Lord is always with us & does answer our prayers. Ron had been worried how he was going to pay for the hospital bills for the rest of his life. The policy was always the same, he just needed to seek help.
Heavenly Father told him where the computer games were. I had a similar experience once with a lost wedding ring. Prayer is real!
I love how Ron fervently sought the Lord’s help in finding those computer games and didn’t give up, even though he was told no over and over again by the Hallmark employee that they weren’t in their store. Ron had absolute faith in the personal revelation he had received and in the sender of that revelation. I want that kind of faith. God indeed answers prayers. He answered Ron’s and with that kind of faith, humility, trust, and perseverance He will answer ours.
Ron turned to faith … faith in prayer.. When he could have so easily turned to anger and helplessness! What a great excample
Of faith and hope during hard times !
Faith precedes the miracle. This is exactly what happened when Ron prayed with faith and immediately received absolute knowledge. He knew just where the computer games were. “Ask and ye shall receive,” if it be right. God loves each of us with a perfect love and blesses us in His own due time. Every time.
They were blessed to find the games after his prayer was answered. They were also blessed to find out the insurance policy they had would cover the outstanding medical bills. Truly a blessing from our Heavenly Father.
The Dad and Mom in the story were going through extremely difficult times. An incredibly high hospital bill came with it the news that the Mom would soon die from cancer. The two parents still wanted to give their children a good Christmas, so they bought video games. Those video games were lost. And only through a sincere prayer was the Dad given insight that he wouldn’t have otherwise had. The story ends well, with an insurance clause that would pay the expensive bill. Those key events may have never taken place if the couple didn’t stand still and remember their God in a time of crisis.
Fervent prayers when we fall on especially hard times. Fervent prayers when we are desperate. Fervent prayers for our children when we feel helpless or lost or incapable. Stories like this confirm that we have a direct line. Prayer at any time is a good time.
So much was happening with this dear family. Their prayers were answered in finding the lost video games and in helping them find a clause in their insurance that paid the bill.
The Lord is concerned about what we are Cindy about. We can pray to Him about anything.
Learning to ask and expect miracles knowing He can and will bless us in ways we cannot even imagine.
Ron received an answer to his pray as “a stroke of pure knowledge” in his mind, and even better he persisted in following that inspiration even though the store clerk kept insisting that they didn’t have the bag he had inadvertently left. And what an incredible blessing to have the hospital staff member discover the provision in his wife’s insurance that relieved them of the burden of medical debt! Thank you for the story, Ron!
The Lord is always concerned for us and is just waiting for us to ask. Weather it be lost computer games, or in my case, lost keys, he always knows.
Ron shared a very special spiritual experience with prayer during a very difficult time in his life. So grateful for his testimony of prayer and our Savior and Heavenly Father.