Travel options can change in a pandeminic.

When you get to be our age, and in this crazy pandemic time, travel options are limited, huh? Because COVID-19 rearranged any travel plans we might have had, we go nowhere.

That is, until dear old Doug decided to take an ambulance ride to the ER Sunday AM.

Well, he didn’t really decide to take the ride; the doctor booked the trip.

Like all trips, this had a learning curve. Doug’s recent illness and hospitalization show me I must quit trying to be Wonder Woman, and ask for help.

That’s been weird.

When the hairs get as gray as ours, it should not surprise me when some wheels fall off the old bus. But our latest trip to the ER sure did surprise me.  It was a completely new adventure in learning the meaning of powerlessness.

Or, maybe it was another opportunity to let go and let God show His faithfulness?  He said:

I will be your God throughout your lifetime—
    until your hair is white with age.
I made you, and I will care for you.
    I will carry you along and save you. (Isaiah 46:3-5)

After all, I sure like to quote it. Although, I wasn’t quite ready for the pop quiz! (neither was Doug!)

I have never felt so boxed in as I have during this week’s adventures.   Because the hospital has a strict no visitors’ policy because of COVID-19, I couldn’t be with Doug, take notes, or be my useful self.

Now, we had just finished reading Christ and the Coronavirus, by John Piper before this emergency happened. (I recommend it, btw.) Of course, the book all made great sense until suddenly I was struggling to remember how Dr. Piper saw God’s hand in this pandemic.

It’s one thing reading a book about faith in times of trouble, and another watching the EMT’s carry Doug away.

So, leaving Doug  in the hospital was one of the Do you really believe God’s got this? moments.

And I did . . . largely because every time I started speculating, I felt the door to what-if close firmly. Me, the one whose talent for projection can be inexhaustible, just did the next thing.  That has been a God-thing. (Matthew 6:25-34)

God is not a deceiver, that he should offer to support us, and then, when we lean upon Him, should slip away from us.— Augustine

Doug’s back home, not quite up to prime time; but, he is healing, hopeful and grateful. We both are!

The same sovereignty that could stop the coronavirus, yet doesn’t, is the very sovereignty that sustains the soul in it. (Christ and the Coronavirus, page 23)

God’s sovereignty has been a moment-by-moment kind of care, through the kindness of strangers, and the loving help from family and friends.

With so much rancor on the news, having so many do so much has been one of the best tonics imaginable!

This wasn’t like the travel options we would have planned.  However, the care has been sufficient for each day of this adventure. Somehow, God  still keeps our attention in the here and now, and off the what-if’s.

Try your very best to live in the present moment where your heart beats are. ~Bernard Basset, We Neurotics: A Handbook for the Half-Mad, 1962

P.S.            By the way, a fellow blogger had just published a timely piece,  When Should I Go to the ER with a Loved One. Right now, organize the information an EMT worker might want immediately, when you are having trouble remember your own name!