Gutless

A couple of weeks ago my daughter called from the hospital. The doctors were confused about whether she had appendicitis or a ruptured cyst. She was exhibiting the pain of appendicitis, but not the elevated white blood cell count nor was she febrile.

We immediately started praying for her but couldn't really think of anything else we could do. Apparently prayer was the best thing we could have done, though. She called back and told me that her in-laws had a friend with extra flight miles and he was offering them to me and to Lesley (a week later) to fly out to Kansas to take care of Nat's family. Bang! Answer one.

So I flew out to Kansas. (I enjoy flying and am getting pretty good at it after this summer. The flights ranged from fun to adequate. They don't even offer peanuts on 'American' flights anymore.)

Once there, I didn't step outside the house until Friday--barely knew what the place looked like until then. It was all playing with my adorable babies and diapers and taking care of Natassia, who got home the next morning.

It turned out that Nat's appendix did rupture. Because it happened behind some other 'guts', the sepsis didn't spread out into her system. That's why her temperature and white cell count didn't elevate. Answer two.

I caught food poisoning from some food one of the ladies from church brought (at least that's what I think it was). I felt like death for the whole night but finally, after the poison was out of my system, started to rally. I was still able to take care of things. I used a couple of plastic bags on my hands in case it was actually flu, but nobody else got sick. I was back to feeling fine by evening. Answer three.

On the way home, I had a lay-over in Dallas, Texas. As I sat there, I got the distinct impression that the three Middle Eastern guys waiting there were up to no good. So I prayed again. Then I took out my sketch pad and sketched the one who was sitting there with the bags (the other two went somewhere). Then I memorized everything about him (and the other two when they got back). They didn't sit together on the plane and disappeared when we got to Tucson. I have no idea if they were really up to no good, but I have a dang good idea of what they looked like. As we touched down on the runway and came to a stop, I breathed another heartfelt prayer of thanks. Answer 4.

Thank God for His tender mercies every day. I feel His hand working the controls of my life and hope that I can fly back to him intact.