An intersection in lives

It has been very difficult for me to put this blog entry together.  This day has been a roller coaster of emotions.  I am having a hard time keeping my mind focused.  So please forgive me if this turns into an incoherent, rambling stream.

This is a day that we had been looking forward to for a very long time.  This is the day that we went to the US consulate in Guangzhou to apply for Molly's visa home.  We had anticipated a somewhat elaborate occasion with much pomp and ceremony.  But it was not that at all.  We simply took an oath to tell the truth, produced our passports and gave them one signature.  That was it.  Listen, we brought nice clothes for this specific occasion.  It seems like there should have been just a little more to it.  Even though it was a relatively quick and simple undertaking, we still end up with tears and hugs at the end.  It was the culmination of a lot of prayer, work and patience.  It was the final legal step in a very long process to bring our daughter home.  Now all that is left is picking up Molly's passport and visa on Wednesday and then heading back to the US.  It couldn't come soon enough.

This afternoon I got an email from my dad telling me that his brother, Frank, had had a stroke and was being moved to the ICU at the hospital.  Only last week Frank was diagnosed with an aggressive form of leukemia.  Early this morning he had a large hemorrhage in his brain that was a direct complication of the leukemia.  My dad got the call and headed straight for the hospital.  Frank had already been there for several days because of the leukemia.  My dad is Frank's only sibling.  Their parents both died several years ago.  Frank never got married or had any children.  So Frank has no other family except my dad.  So now my dad has to make all decisions related to his brother's care.  The doctor's have described the hemorrhage as large and expanding.  There was no way to predict that it would happen and absolutely nothing that can be done to try to treat it.  It makes me wonder when I last saw Frank and what I said to him.  What would I have said or done differently if I had known this would happen?  It makes me wish that I could be at the hospital with my dad to help him with these decisions and just to be with him.  It just makes me so sad.  AHHHHH!  Why now?  Why did it have to happen?  Why can't I be there?  I don't know and I don't like it.  But at the same time I wouldn't be anywhere else than where I am right now so that my family will be complete and we can all come home.  It makes me even more sad that Frank might never get to see his two new great nieces, Molly and Laura.  I just know that he would have fallen in love with them as we have.

Above all it gives me great comfort to know that God knew this very set of circumstances was going to take place long before time began.  For reasons that we may never know, He specifically orchestrated the events of our lives to lead us to this very intersection.  It's certainly not the way I would have done it.  But then I am not God.  So what are we to do but trust Him?  There is nothing else.

"In Him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of Him who works all things according to the counsel of His will."  Ephesians 1:11