Irony of Ironies...The rest of the story....

My previous post was written in the early hours of last Friday morning. It was my 43rd birthday, and a dear and special friend had called to say she was stopping by with my birthday present on her way to work. I told you how I reflected that she and I needed to take a little time to stop and smell the roses together, as we both have a tendency to let all the responsibilities of life keep us from seeing each other as often as we would like.

I introduced you to Debbie, a good friend of mine for around 15 years now.

I had no way of knowing how her life would change before the end of the day.

I went through my weekend pretty much as usual. Our dinner plans got scrapped on my birthday, much to my chagrin, because of a fierce storm that surrounded us and turned our car back for safer roads several times that night. As we had traveled towards the north, a black cloud with some of the worst lightning coming out of it that I have ever seen blocked our safe passage to the interstate and dinner. We turned back to the south, and it came at us from the west. Finally, we stopped and got burgers for the kids and just came home. My fearless husband was even bothered by this storm. Local law enforcement thought that a small tornado may have even come through, as it netted a tree through one of their windshields while they were out on a call.

Sunday, we made our usual journey to worship and on to my parents' home, then back to worship, and then back to the parents for the birthday celebration with family. I was so tired on the trip home Sunday night that I fell asleep, something I don't normally do in the car. When I got in, I was too tired to even check my email...something else I rarely fail to do.

When I got up early Monday morning, I had a shock waiting in the inbox. Debbie had emailed me to say that late Friday afternoon, her husband got a lab report back that a growth removed from his head was malignant. Melanoma.

Isn't it ironic how you can go weeks....months....without interacting with people, and then all of the sudden, you feel compelled to find them? I have learned to listen to my impulses to make that phone call or write that letter or card, or just get in the car and head on over to a friend's house, because the impulse is usually for a special reason.

Debbie and I talked yesterday, and our porch swing session, still scheduled for Thursday, is bound to include a lot of prayer. We are going to hang on to the hope for now that this is all a big mistake (Deb's husband says that there were others in the Dr.'s office getting moles removed, and his was not grey, as the doctor reported but instead a very distinct shade of pink. We all know that lab tests can get mixed up....) And if Tony is indeed afflicted with this problem, we are going to pray to the Great Physician for his complete healing so that he may go on to do great things in the kingdom of the Lord someday. This is my hope and prayer, and I hope it will be yours too!

(If all this makes entirely no sense to you, please read the previous post.)

Please keep my mom in your prayers, too. She goes to the oncologist today to see what they are going to do about the swollen lymph nodes in her neck. I will keep you posted.