February 11th, 2008 - Week 1 Drawing to a close
There are two seemingly insignificant, but incredibly awesome events that have occured very recently. Of course, there are others that are equally relevant, but didn’t happen so recently, so I won’t go into those right now, but I’d like to very briefly share with you, the incidents that happened just in the past week or so, as they are really helping me to bring some perspective to the current situation.
Just a few days before Cameron’s admission I was doing a little financial juggling to make sure there were just enough funds in an account to meet a direct debit car payment that was expected the next day. Nothing particularly unusual about that, except the next day I routinely checked to confirm the payment had been processed, only to realise that I had failed to take into account our family medical insurance, which hit on the same day, immediately before the car payment. I mentioned to Leigh how frustrated I was about this as it had thrown a curved ball into my plan. A couple days later as we sat there in the emergency room completing all of the administrative paperwork and consent forms I realised that my planning was of little consequence in relation to God’s plan. On that day He decided and ordered our priorities and in so doing ensured that all of the most unexpected, unanticipated and substantial costs of medical treatment for Cameron will unquestionably be met in the days, weeks and months immediately following. Wow!
Which brings to last Monday, exactly one week ago, when I had cause to travel right down into the heart of downtown Brisbane for the very first time since we move over here 8 or so months ago. Having never been down there before I knew that arriving in time for my 8.30am meeting would require something of a navigational stunt, not to mention a juggling act as I had no idea where I was going and the route was spread over a number of pages of the map book. I left at 6.30am and still arrived 30 minutes late… How different life was then. On that particular day if someone had told me that I was covering the exact same route that I would travel every single day since then, because one of my kids would be diagnosed with cancer and be urgently admitted to hospital in Brisbane the very next day, well… not only would I have ignored that as something of a bad joke, but I probably would have made a point of avoiding that person in future.
These incidents have been in the back of my mind ever since Cam was admitted and the daily 3 hour round trip has been giving me plenty of time to think about them. I woke this morning with the realisation that the person I would almost certainly have rejected as some kind of fruit-cake was none other than God. There can be no other, more logical explanation for this downtown driving incident. Think about it. The odds of undertaking a totally unfamiliar journey for the very first time, exactly one day before I would be required to do that for very different and far more important reasons, every day for some time thereafter must be greater than those of winning the lottery. Was He making sure that I was familiar with the route? Was He preparing me for the more important dash we would be making to the emergency room the very next day? Of course. Wow!
February 11th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Hi Cameron! We’re all thinking of you back here at school. I’ve got some great photos of you from camp.
Best wishes.
Mr Duggan
February 12th, 2008 at 3:51 am
Hi Cam.Just thinking of you and sending you lots of love in getting ready for the big day tomorrow, but as I see you have lots of people rooting for you and saying prayers, I am positive we will all beat this thing together! You being the strongest of course. Lots of Love Auntie Deidre Uncle Martin Manuella and Kenneth, big hugs to your Mom and Dad and your brothers. Kisses xxxx