When God Moves a Mountain

There is a scripture that says if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can move mountains. (Matthew 17:20) I’ve heard this verse all my life, mostly when someone was trying to motivate or encourage. I always thought my faith must be microscopic because it’s never come close to moving mountains. Recently, I’ve begun to see I was wrong.

In 2020, at the beginning of the pandemic when the world shut down, God entrusted us with another beautiful baby. A week later, we discovered she had tethered oral tissue in the form of tongue and lip ties. When she was diagnosed, we began connecting the dots with some issues we had had with our older children. To make a long story short, all 3 of our kids had various degrees of tethered oral tissue: tongue ties, lip ties and buccal or cheek ties. Since our oldest was 5 at the time, her mouth hadn’t been able to develop as it should have, and we discovered we had a long road ahead in order to allow her palate to grow to enable room for her teeth as well as correct her tongue position. Our middle child was 3 at the time he was diagnosed, and we were advised to post pone treatment until he was a little older. Again, there are so many details it would take so much time to tell, but suffice it to say we were presented with a mountain without really even knowing it. Our future would be full of therapies, procedures, chiropractic care, dental visits, dental appliances, many road trips and THOUSANDS of dollars in bills not covered by insurance. Looking back, I know I would have been completely overwhelmed if I had known then what I know now. I couldn’t even see how large the mountain was when we began. That’s one of the blessings from God. He shields us from just how large our mountains are because He knows we might not even start our faith journey if we had all the details. It makes me think of pictures I’ve seen of very tall mountains where the clouds completely cover the summit and hikers cannot see how far they have to go. Sometimes seeing the finish line isn’t motivation; It feels like immediate defeat.

I’ll be the first to admit, things could have been much worse. We could have been facing a terminal diagnosis or a lifelong handicap. In fact, there were times when I would try to convince myself what we were facing wasn’t that bad. The first moment I realized this WAS a big deal was when I sat in my doctor’s office for my postpartum check up in 2020 and after giving her a brief update on the kids she said, “Kadie, that’s a lot of stress. How are you handling it?” I simply told her we were just taking it as it came and depending on God. It was the absolute truth. As the months passed, I realized too often people compare their struggles to those of others. As a result, there were times I would feel as though our struggles weren’t worth mentioning. After all, our kids were happy and healthy. All the “little details” didn’t matter right? People don’t talk about tongue ties so they definitely don’t talk about the issues of undiagnosed tongue ties. (Which range from anxiety, sleep apnea, having teeth pulled, headaches, muscle strain and tension and much more.) Over the years, I have learned that our road wasn’t any less stressful or painful just because someone else “had it worse.” Their mountain didn’t affect ours. We were still faced with obstacles we couldn’t conquer on our own. The fact that others had it bad didn’t make time pass faster or our resolution come quicker, and it certainly didn’t make our plight any less significant to God. We didn’t need to feel sorry for ourselves, but we didn’t need to belittle the journey ahead of us either.

I say all that to say this: Maybe we don't realize our faith is moving mountains because we don't realize we are facing a mountain. How can you trust God to move something that doesn’t exist? When all of this began, I didn’t see the huge mountain in front of us. It was a detour, a hill, a valley, an inconvenience. I didn’t look to the future and say, “God is going to move this mountain.” Instead, I took it one appointment, one medical bill, one complication at a time. Looking back now, I do see what a huge mountain God moved and is still moving for us. I see His hand in every detail, every puzzle piece.

In our case, God didn’t make the mountain completely disappear. He didn’t even move it all at once. In reality, it is still being moved, boulder by boulder. We got a diagnosis. We had one procedure. Chiropractic care. Another diagnosis. Myofuntional therapy sessions. Another procedure. And so on and so on. One boulder at time…

God’s provision:

1. We had wonderful friends with knowledge and experience in tongue ties who we could ask for advice.

2. The pandemic shutdown meant appointments were open and easy to schedule.

3. Jeremy was working from home so he was able go to appointments with us, and we could take turns watching the kids and going in to see the dentist.

4. Though our insurance didn’t cover the costs, God provided other avenues to pay bills.

5. We continue to discover we have wonderful professionals near to treat our kids as new needs arise.

6. We have strong children who have an even bigger faith than we do at times.

One of the biggest ways God showed us His constant presence was with our finances. One tongue tie consultation and procedure isn’t cheap. When you add consultations and procedures for 3 children of varying ages, chiropractor visits, dental appliances for 2, myofuntional therapy visits, fuel and mileage, the numbers add up very quickly. (Plus, the only thing covered by insurance so far is chiropractic care, and that cost goes toward our deductible, so we still have to pay it.) When I say it costs thousands of dollars, I’m talking $20,000 over 4 years. (And that didn’t include the doctor bill or hospital stay incurred when our last child was born the week before all of this tongue tie business started!) I don’t know how God did it. I am a stay at home mom. My husband is a public school teacher. When I look at what God has allowed us to do plus pay for all this, my brain just can’t fully comprehend it. All I know is, I believed God would provide, and He did. Through payment plans, a health savings account, and stretching our money in ways only He could, He provided what we needed when we needed it. That doesn’t mean I didn’t worry. I am a planner and I love a good budget. I remember getting so frustrated when unexpected expenses arose because I didn’t know how we would pay for it all. He did. He is. HALLELUJAH!

A huge part of our story is how God has also been allowing our hearts to heal. It is a very slow process, but God is patient with us. The emotional toll this has taken may be one of the biggest pieces of rock He has moved. When our oldest was born and we were having difficulties feeding her, it seemed like few people cared, and the ones who did were 3 hours away with a helpless feeling of their own. I know that sounds harsh, but it is what it is. Being the first grandchild on either side, people were very excited. I am thankful for that. However, when Jeremy and I began to discover something just wasn’t right and our child needed to gain weight and breastfeeding wasn’t working, all the attention didn’t help. We felt we couldn’t talk to people about our struggles because they didn’t want to hear it; They just wanted to hold the baby. It caused wounds. Huge scars. We were under a tremendous amount of stress and couldn't get to the root of the problem. Plus, I was trying to heal from a C-section. Looking back and being able to pinpoint the problem helps tremendously. I don't know why all the doctors missed the diagnosis, but with the help of God, I was able to begin letting go of the hurt. In fact, just a few weeks ago our preacher presented a sermon on letting go of grudges. Oh, did that hit hard! It was like a stick of dynamite to that part of my mountain. Immediately, rocks began to dislodge and tumble. By faith, God is moving a massive amount of stone. We’ve also had to forgive ourselves and get rid of the guilt. I can’t tell you how many times we’ve felt guilty for passing this to our kids (because it runs in families) or for not looking hard enough to find an answer and simply listening to the doctors we were seeing. I know it’s not our fault, but that’s how the enemy works. He is good at making people blame themselves. I blamed myself for years for not being able to breastfeed my children longer than I did.

Now, I feel an urgency to help others. I need to tell our story. I need to talk to others about tongue ties and lead them to the resources we’ve discovered. To tell others how God has gotten us through it. During this process, our oldest has asked, “Why did God make me this way?” Her road has been challenging, but she is doing AMAZINGLY well. I always tell her she isn’t broken, God doesn’t make mistakes, and maybe His plan for her life includes helping others with similar struggles. We pray for the babies we see in the dentist office when we are there. We’ve talked to nervous parents to try to ease some of their fears. Her dentist has also used her as a case study in lectures to other professionals. How wonderful is that?!

God has truly moved mountains for us, and He still is. We've had good days and bad days along the way. Days where our faith seemed strong, and others where it seemed microscopic. There have been times I praised Him for being able to pay bills and times I've thought about suing providers for missing a seemingly simple diagnosis. We are sinners in need of a God full of mercy and grace. We pray our story can inspire others to keep the faith, hold on and trust the God who moves mountains.

(If I were to write the totality of our experience, it would probably fill the pages of a book. People don’t have that much time, and probably don’t want that much information about our lives. Haha However, I would love to answer any questions for those who want to know more. I know there are many people with the same issues as us who need answers. I will gladly point you to lists of symptoms, research, dentists, speech therapists, lactation consultants, etc. Please, feel free to reach out to us.)