It’s going to be a crazy day at the hospital. Maybe a crazy three days. Beth had a blood transfusion yesterday – a standard “treatment of the symptoms” for what she’s got, and it makes her feel generally better.
We may or may not find out today what the results of the biopsy are. Yes, we’ve been told it will likely be Friday, but we’ve also been told, “don’t believe everything they tell you”. So it could be Monday before we know.
Meanwhile, we’ll have three days down at the hospital, on the Hematology/Oncology floor, in which Beth is relatively healthy and the kids will be moving in and taking over.
Before I start to write too much about what this diagnosis means, and how it could affect our family going forward, I want to say that I trust God completely, in the spirit that some of the earliest Reformers wrote about God’s Providence:
We believe that the same God, after he had created all things, did not forsake them, or give them up to fortune or chance, but that he rules and governs them according to his holy will, so that nothing happens in this world without his appointment: nevertheless, God neither is the author of, nor can be charged with, the sins which are committed. For his power and goodness are so great and incomprehensible, that he orders and executes his work in the most excellent and just manner, even then, when devils and wicked men act unjustly.
And, as to what he doth surpassing human understanding, we will not curiously inquire into, farther than our capacity will admit of; but with the greatest humility and reverence adore the righteous judgments of God, which are hid from us, contenting ourselves that we are disciples of Christ, to learn only those things which he has revealed to us in his Word, without transgressing these limits.
This doctrine affords us unspeakable consolation, since we are taught thereby that nothing can befall us by chance, but by the direction of our most gracious and heavenly Father; who watches over us with a paternal care, keeping all creatures so under his power, that not a hair of our head (for they are all numbered), nor a sparrow, can fall to the ground, without the will of our Father, in whom we do entirely trust; being persuaded, that he so restrains the devil and all our enemies, that without his will and permission, they cannot hurt us.
From The Belgic Confession, Article 13.
I know, those are long sentences, but that’s how they wrote back then.
