God’s Timing Is Perfect

The year 2020 was a year that most of us would rather forget, but then how can you forget a year that never was? At least, that is how it felt with COVID-19’s isolation and closed restaurants, schools, and churches. Then there were the masks! It would be hard to forget the masks. Looking back on it, that year was quite eventful for us, though not in a good way. In June, my husband was put on steroid medication that sent him, two days later, into atrial fibrillation (A-fib) for the first time. His heart was shocked back into rhythm in the emergency room. In late October, my husband and I came down with COVID-19.

My case was mild compared to his. He ended up with pneumonia and was hospitalized. While there, he went into A-fib again and was moved to the ICU (intensive care unit). His hospital stay lasted eleven days. We had planned a trip to California to visit our youngest daughter and her family but had to cancel the night before, with boarding passes already issued, because my husband had another A-fib episode. In November, a number of our family traveled to Mexico on vacation. On their return, our daughter had an emergency appendectomy, and our granddaughter’s gallbladder needed removal.

Our precious three-year-old great-grandson was rushed to the hospital and then transferred by ambulance to a pediatric ICU with a diagnosis of type 1 diabetes. The father of our granddaughter’s mother-in-law passed away, and she had to fly home to be with family. Here is where we can see God’s hand through it all. If we had taken our planned trip, we would not have been available to help when it was desperately needed.

What if our daughter’s appendix had ruptured, our granddaughter had her gallbladder attack, our little great-grandson had diabetes symptoms, or the precious father had died while they were in Mexico? God providentially held all of this back until they arrived back home in America. What if we had taken that trip and my husband went into A-fib on the plane? While God did not cause or prevent these things from happening, He knew what needed to be done to ease the circumstances. We never know what is around the corner, but by faith, we can know God will be there to see us through.

Sue Anderson