The Road Unseen

Remembering our conversation, I suddenly thought of my mother and a situation that occurred in her eighty-seventh year. Her doctor gave her a diagnosis of lung cancer. He based this diagnosis on first an x-ray and then a CT scan. I remember clearly the young tech who did the CT scanned confirmed to me there was a mass in her lung. The doctor said that given my mother’s age and health (by then she was almost blind), he wouldn’t recommend a lot of tests or treatments, that symptoms could be managed as they occurred. Now, this happened some four months after my husband’s untimely death and Mama and I weren’t thinking all that clearly, so we accepted the recommendation. Both Mama and I held more fear of the medical procedures than we did illness.

Guess what. My mother lived to be ninety-one and never did have cancer. A year after the erroneous diagnosis, circumstances brought us to a new doctor, who told us there was no mass, that whatever it had been–he guessed infection–had cleared up. Further, a cancer diagnosis would have required a biopsy.

I’m not suggesting a miracle healing, although I don’t rule it out. What I’m reminded of with this incident is that we never really know what’s going to happen.

We can only see so far down the road. Some of us have better eyesight than others, but for everyone there is a limit. That road in the photo bends, and no one can know what is around that bend.

For myself, countless times I have peered down that road and thought I saw a person, only to get further along and see it was a mailbox.

It seems to me the best thing to do is to be like my faithful dog and go happily along my road of life, expecting wonderful things to turn up.

“Expect God to show up,” said a wise woman.

So, dear reader, if you are facing a state of affairs and don’t feel up to the task required–likely from predicting the worst–don’t count yourself out. Take a bit of a break and maybe a little turn toward expecting the best. Sit down one more time to write another page. Query another agent…watch one YouTube video on publishing yourself. Get out your paints…your sewing…your plans for your yard…your chicken house…your dinner.

In Mama’s last five years, the road was sometimes sweet and smooth, and oftentimes awfully rough, but looking back down the road, I see that God showed up through every turn, and that is the most precious of all.