Perfect Timing

This weekend, I was supposed to be on a girls’ shopping trip. Two glorious days. Eight women. No whining children or impatient husbands allowed. Only miles of outlet malls beckoning us. Dressing room curtains pulled back, waiting for us to wander in with arms full of clothing to be tried on. By ourselves. Without other little people in there with us. But God had other plans.

Instead, I spent Saturday afternoon in a hospital dressing room, across the hall from an MRI machine, listening to the Ka-chong! Ka-chong! Ka-chong! for 45 minutes as it took intricate pictures of my mother’s knee.

But let me back up a little.

On Monday, I faced a week of challenges…some of which I couldn’t have fathomed yet. I did the things that mothers do when they are trying to get ready to go out of town. See, “Me Time” when you’re a mom requires a ton of preparation. I surveyed the laundry situation in my house. I ensured that there were enough outfits for everyone to get us through until I returned. I went food shopping and bought what was necessary for the week, and then made sure there was also enough to get my husband through the weekend. I made plans for childcare so that I could leave at 1 p.m. on Friday to begin my 30 hour vacation from reality.

By Tuesday, things were going well. The kids were healthy. No one had developed an illness that would escalate by Friday, thus keeping me from going. VBS was humming along. Even made sure that the items I had listed on eBay would end before I left so I would have time to ship them out, ensuring happy customers.

Then on Wednesday, things started to unravel. Mom got hurt and had to go to the hospital. I got a ticket. I was getting sent curve balls of every shape and size, but each time, I tried my best to re-group, to pull it back together and march on.

By Thursday afternoon, I needed help. I realized that trying to get a 4-year-old, an almost two-year-old in a stroller and my mom in a wheelchair into the hospital at the same time for a doctor’s appt. wasn’t going to work. I called in reinforcements, who arrived promptly in the form of my mother’s “church lady” friends.

That’s when God showed himself to me, big time. My mother started getting catered meals at her apartment – without us asking. People started offering to take my children off my hands. I received a pick-me-up gift on my front steps one morning with an encouraging card inside from a friend. Busy days that seemed insurmountable were actually going fine. Sure, there were bumps in the road and moments when all I could think about was falling into bed from exhaustion, but every time I felt like the earth under my feet was about to give way, God slipped a trampoline underneath and helped me bounce to the next thing.

That brings me to Saturday and the MRI. Those 45 minutes that I spent in the hospital dressing room, leafing through a stack of magazines (also provided by a friend) turned out to be the most relaxing part of my day.

Sure we have a lot more ahead of us this week - more doctors’ appointments and hopefully surgery on Friday. But things are going very well. Mom is getting around with a walker and her spirits are good. And really, this couldn’t have happened at a better time. We’re done with all our summer traveling. We really didn’t have any plans at all for the last half of the summer – so the prospect of helping mom recover and multiple visits a week to physical therapy for a month or so works just fine.

In other words, the timing is perfect.

Lamentations 3:22-24 (New King James Version)

22 Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.
23 They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
24 “ The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
“ Therefore I hope in Him!”