How can the word "Positive" bring such negative feelings? I'm not sure, I only know it certainly did this morning.
I had gone to the Urgent Care expecting to be given antibiotics for what I thought was an ear infection. I am prone to ear and sinus infections at the beginning of winter and I assumed this was what was causing my ears and throat to burn.
Also, I needed a negative Covid test to return to work since a coworker came down with Covid during a shift we shared a few nights ago.
Only I didn't get a negative test.
"I am so sorry, the test was positive," the physician's assistant said.
"What?" I exclaimed, more with incredulity than with lack of understanding.
It couldn't be! I couldn't be Covid positive two days before Christmas. We have a Christmas dinner for eleven partially cooked already! The 20+ pound turkey is resting quietly on the shelf in the refrigerator just waiting to be put in brine tonight. Almost all of the presents are wrapped and the stockings are waiting for their stuffed debut.
But the play has been canceled. We have Covid in the house.
I texted the result to Glen from the examination room. I had just texted him that I did not have hypertension (which I already knew) when the PA came in with my Covid result.
"I DO however have Covid" was my next text.
"Oh..." was his response. Followed by the very best thing he could have said...
"Well...'This is the Lord's doing'... "
Which I followed with the remainder of Psalm 118:23:
" '...it is marvellous in our eyes.' "
Psalm 118:23 has been my life verse for decades and it represents to me a choice. No matter what the circumstances, being diagnosed with a pandemic virus, having all our Christmas plans fall apart, being isolated from family for ten days during the most family-oriented season of the year, there is one choice. That choice is to believe that "This is the Lord's doing; it is marvellous in our eyes," or not.
Moe than once the Scriptures tell us that "as for God, His way is perfect." (2 Samuel 22:31, Psalm 18:30.)
If His way is perfect, and He allowed this virus to take up temporary residence in my body, how can I not choose to see that as a marvelous thing? He knows things I do not know. Perhaps if our family Christmas celebration were allowed to go as scheduled, some or all, of my family may have been injured or killed in a terrible car accident. I do not know the future, but the Lord does, as if it were happening this very second. My role is not to know these things and decide, but to know Him and decide to trust Him.
One thing is for certain, I have never clung to that verse by faith and been disappointed for doing so, and I have faith I won't now either. Do I understand how He will work the details out? Not a clue. Do I need to know? No, He will work in and through us to accomplish His will and His way in His time. My only duty is to trust Him by faith that He is perfectly faithful.
Simply Trusting
Edgar Page Stites
Music by
Ira David Sankey
Simply Trusting
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