Delivered

The sky foretold victory -- a brilliant sunrise greeted me in the morning. Wonderful day at the hospital yesterday. I arrived to hear my sister ordering her first solid food meal in 6 days. And she had not had pain meds since 8 pm the prior eve and was in minimal pain. Discharge probably today. I haven't been in yet -- child care for my niece first this morn -- but I expect only wonders from here on out.

After her sumptuous meal, we went on a walk around the hospital grounds, she in a double gown rolling her IV stand with her. After a rather harrowing downhill wrangling the IV stand, we found a magnetic board for the Life Sciences building. The magnet strips were all a mess, many broken in pieces. It was a jumbled mosaic chaos, begging for intervention. So we stopped and I made a horse using the magnet pieces and wrote with more magnet pieces, "Amy was here." Meanwhile, Amy made a paddock and bridle. It was quite a pretty little mosaic work of art where there had been just ugliness and confusion. We took quite a few pictures of us with the mosaic, and sent a video to Amy's husband.

Who would have thought hospitals could be such fun?

We laughed quite a bit over our little prank, taking a mess and turning it into a little whimsical work of art. This is just what God does to each of us! I imagine He is laughing with joy as well as He transforms us.

I ran out for sushi for the two of us for dinner, which we ate while making fun of all the scantily clothed actresses on the Golden Globe award show. Strangely, we both were remembering this week in the hospital as kinda fun....

So where was God in the midst of the suffering? He was in the gifts, and the flowers, the prayers, and the emails, and the holding hands through unbearable pain, and the slow walks admiring the art work and discussing the artists' intent, and the kind nurses who cheered with us when Amy ate her first solid food, and the hope of better days ahead, and the ability to laugh at changing a terrible mess into something that would bring joy in a place not usually associated with joy...

....in knowing that no matter the outcome, blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him.

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Psalm 34: 4-8
4 I sought the Lord, and he answered me
and delivered me from all my fears.
5 Those who look to him are radiant,
and their faces shall never be ashamed.
6 This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him
and saved him out of all his troubles.
7 The angel of the Lord encamps
around those who fear him, and delivers them.
8 Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!
 Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!