Seeing God work

When we are in the midst of trials it can be very difficult to see God at work. Sometimes even when our trials seem to come to an end we can't always look back and see how God worked. But we know that He works and it is wonderful when we can step outside of our worry and look around to see it. I thought I would just jot down a few things that I am able to look back and see...

Not too long ago a friend at church invited a Naturopath to come and speak to our Ladies group at church. The doctor is in Portland which is quite a distance from us but I decided to go see her for some nagging health issues. I had an appointment with her when we found out about DH's tumor so I called the receptionist to cancel my appointment. I explained to the receptionist that I just didn't want to deal with anything else right now. She apparently passed the information on to the doctor and shortly after that I received a phone call saying she highly recommended we go see a certain doctor at St. Vincent's hospital. I must admit that I pretty much took the phone number of the doctor just so I wouldn't offend her.

After our first visit with the original neurosurgeon that we were referred to, we both felt pretty discouraged. He kept saying odd things about not really liking to do this kind of surgery and that his ego would not be hurt if we chose to use his partner. He then walked Mark up to the desk to help get an appointment scheduled with his partner. He really wanted Mark to be seen on Monday, just 4 days later. But that happened to be President's Day so we would have to wait possibly 2 weeks to get in to him. In the meantime, a possible trip to a hospital in St. Louis was discussed. I wanted to call the hospital in St. Louis and we needed to call our local hospital to arrange to pick up a disk with the MRI pictures on it but I figured I wouldn't get anywhere with those phone calls since it was President's Day. But actually both places were open even though the original surgeon's office was closed. God closing a door!

Then we started researching hospitals and found that St. Vincent's which is local to us is ranked very well for this type of surgery so we called to schedule an appointment with the doctor that my Naturopath had so kindly referred us to. We were told that we couldn't get in to see him until Feb. 26th which our Chiropractor felt was too long to wait. I was kind of discouraged at this point but decided to see who that office would refer us to when it came about in conversation that the doctor actually changed his plans and was going to be in town and could see Mark on Feb. 21st. Before going out of town he looked at Mark's report and said "Yep, it needs to come out. Schedule him for the day I get back". So after thinking that God was closing this door too, He opened it up wide.

Most of you know that we went today and were very pleased with him. Mark feels very comfortable with it all now and I am praising the Lord for His provision.

All of that to say, that if my friend hadn't invited the Naturopath to speak, I wouldn't have met her and she wouldn't have been able to refer us to the doctor who is doing Mark's surgery. Now I know that God could have worked another way but it is neat for me to look back and see how He worked this out.