Doctor -- Please Give Me the Good News First!!!

Yesterday millions of people witnessed the solar eclipse in some way. While I have a great appreciation for the wonders in the skies and on the earth, I'll admit I didn't get carried away with it all until I was at my car dealership for an oil change and the service guys were outside with their welder's mask and they were getting the view of the eclipse perfectly. My service rep called me over to take a look, and indeed it was a sight to behold. I was able to enjoy those moments because I was prompted to get my oil changed and I requested 1 pm. I wasn't even thinking about the eclipse to be honest with you. That was a special little favor from God.

But this little favor from God turned out to be a big favor because after the oil change, tires rotated, multi-point inspection and state inspection done, my service rep came and said "Miss Donna, I've got some bad news. Your front timing cover needs to be replaced which means the engine has to come out and it will be 19 hours of labor at $145/hour totaling $2755." I know my eyes must have become like saucers and he quickly said "But you've got another 1000 miles on your extended warranty so it will only be $50 for the deductible." Whew -- I breathed a sign of great relief. I told him, "Man -- next time, please start with the good news first!" And then I went on to tell him about one of my husband's highly critical surgeries -- it was touch and go as to whether he would survive it. When the surgery was completed after six hours, our neurologist came to the waiting room. He looked spent. I had already made up my mind that if my sweetheart went to heaven during the surgery, I would declare God's faithfulness and based on how the doctor looked, I was bracing myself for the news. The first words out of his mouth were "I'm so sorry that we were unable to get all of the tumor because he had such significant blood loss." I stopped him in almost mid sentence and said, "Doc, first, I need to know, is he alive or not?" To which, he replied, "Oh yes, he's alive and doing well!" Whew -- another sign of relief. I also schooled the doc that day about giving good news first.

My sweetheart underwent needed surgery and my car is going through needed surgery. The sun shined brightly and then, in some places -- it went dark. But the good news was, the sun never stopped shining -- it just appeared to go dark because the moon perfectly aligned between the sun and earth. How's that for our Creator's indescribable brilliance? My Sweetheart was still alive UNTIL our Creator deemed it was his appointed time to leave this planet, and my car will be repaired because of the foresight to buy an extended warranty just in case of potential repairs needed one day.

Everything about this post has to do with our awesome Creator -- He who knows EVERYTHING about EVERYTHING. There are times when something gets in the way and we struggle to see the light of Christ that we know is always there. During those times, it can be easy to be fooled into reacting to the darkness of our circumstances. Our faith calls us to live differently, beyond our senses.

Even during the darkest times, we know by faith that God puts a path before us and calls us to follow. Let's remember to act not only on what we experience with our senses, but at all times and in all circumstances to live by faith. Because He knows our todays -- the dark shadows that may come and the bright sunlight that drives out the darkness -- we can know every day the sun (The Son) is always shining brightly and our Creator has something special up His sovereign sleeves.....so let's just keep our "Son" glasses on and keep our eyes on He Who destroys the darkness.