[Faith-talk] Good Night Message for Thursday, 3/13/21 and a Frustrating Feeling

[Paul]

Hello and good day to all of us individually and collectively and, since we are in the Americas, good evening to those of you who live in our part of the world.  I hope and pray that, by God's matchless grace and His providential care, that you all are doing well or did well today.

Marian Westra of Marshall MI contributed the article for today.  Entitled "A New Trust," it is rendered as follows:

Just another dreary March day, I thought, looking out the kitchen window.  Not a bit of color.  No hint that spring would arrive soon.  And it had been a long, long winter.

My husband, Raymond, was sitting at the table in his wheelchair while I cleaned up after our breakfast.  "Are you the lady who's keeping me here?" Raymond asked in a testy voice behind me.  "I want to go home."

I turned from the window and walked over to him.  "You are home, honey," I said, patting his shoulder.

This may have been the toughest year of our 62-year marriage.  Raymond had grown so feeble he could no longer walk, and it took all my strength to help him in and out of the wheelchair.  What was even harder, though, was his worsening dementia.  Time and again he'd aske me who I was or where he was.  It exhausted me physically and emotionally.  I'd prayed a lot about our situation, but lately, I felt as though God wasn't really listening.  He seemed just out of reach.  I'm at my wits' end, Lord, I prayed.  Please give me a sign of spring to show me you hear my prayers, something.

I finished the dishes and wheeled Raymond into the living room.  He liked to sit in the soft ruby-colored chair by the picture window and watch our neighbors go about their day.  I settled him in the chair before I opened up the drapes completely.  Suddenly, his eyes lit up.  I turned to look through the crack in the curtain to see what had caught his attention.  A robin sitting in the branches of the tree, a respite of red against the grayness.  Maybe God was listening.  Then I pulled open the drapes.  That's when I saw it.  There on the lawn with its patches of grimy snow were _hundreds of robins.  It was a blanket of red from our driveway all the way down to the Street!

And there you have Sister Marian's article.  Which only goes to show that God can turn the bleakest situation, or even a life, into "something beautiful," to quote Malcolm Muggeridge, from a dull situation into something encouraging.

And now for the bad news.  I went for my procedure, but my procedure didn't go for me.  Here's what happened:  I spoke to the secretary of the doctor who was going to do the colonoscopy, and she reassured me over the phone that I wouldn't have to have someone drive me home, anesthesia or no.  Well, both the doctor and the hospital thought otherwise.  This means that the ball is back in my doctor's hands, so to speak.  Tomorrow I'll call his secretary and explain the whole thing to her, and maybe she can come up with a solution.  I will also call my doctor with the same request that he find someone who could drive me home.  Now, if I wanted the colonoscopy without anesthesia, I could go home without any attendant, but because I wanted it and with my past history of epilepsy, they wouldn't allow it.  And all this after my preparation.  Oh well, just pray that this situation will get resolved.

And now may the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob just keep us safe, individually and collectively, throughout this night or day and especially in these last days in which we live.  Your Christian friend and brother, Paul