I remember the moment with perfect clarity. My room was a hopeless mess, but one great thing about talking to people on the phone… Wait. I need to correct that. The only great thing about talking to people on the phone is that you can put the phone on speaker (if yours has that capability, anyway) and clean.
So, while I updated my mother on everything going on with my grandson and his hospital stay, all the tests, surgeries–everything related to the electrocution that should have killed him–I cleaned. I think my frantic pace probably left me a little breathless, because when I mentioned the mounting bills, Mom stopped me.
“Chautona.”
Only mom can say my name like that, but when she does it, she becomes my own personal E.F. Hutton. I listen. “Huh?”
“God’s got this.”
Look, it’s not that I didn’t know that, but having your mother remind you of a basic, beautiful thing holds a different kind of weight… a balance to it that hearing it from others just doesn’t possess. I relaxed a little. Sat on the bed. Really listened. “Yeah…”
He did, of course. The bills were paid. All the surgeries, a month in the hospital, no income–God covered every bit of it. Because He’s God and that’s what He does. It wasn’t easy or instantaneous. It didn’t appear out of heaven like manna. Trust me, there would have been no, “What is it?” about real pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters, and dollars raining down from heaven. But like my neighbor said at the time:
It’s true. For Him, for us, and for those we serve, it is true.
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Isn’t It Amazing How God Is in the Tiniest Details?
As many of you know, Mom lives with us now. Instead of calling halfway across the country to keep her updated (something I didn’t do often enough because of sleep schedules and a hatred of phones), I step into her room and we chat. Tonight she called me in about “The Reverend Mr. Black.”
“Who sang that?”
I informed her that it was The Kingston Trio.
A frustrated look crossed her face. “It’s not on my CD. I thought it was them, but I can’t find it.”
How’s that for an example. Mom showed that God is even in the tiny details of a song that yes gives Him glory… while not being about what He did. Not this time.
So the tiny details I’m eager to share are in a folk song?
Not hardly.
Wednesday dawned early for me. Ten o’clock. I hadn’t gotten four hours of sleep. That’s not enough for me. I NEED sleep. Btw… that’s one of the tiny details I do NOT like.
However, Mom had a doctor’s appointment to have her stomach feeding tube looked at in preparation for removal. You know, that feeding tube she HAD to have because she hadn’t eaten in a month but that she only needed for two days before she was able to eat again? Yeah. That one.
The receptionist had said the procedure is done at the outpatient pavilion at the hospital. Can I just say YUCK? She’s been waiting to have it removed since November. And now ANOTHER wait?
Oh, yeah. And Neville ate her Medicare card. Well, that’s our story and we’re sticking to it. We had it one day. The next it was gone. No clue where it went. Not a good start to her medical care here in Ridgecrest.
However, we had given a copy of the card and her ID to another office here in Ridgecrest, so we decided to talk to them about it. Get a copy of it from them. Mom had the number, I have the power of attorney thing. Done deal right?
Wrong. They refused to give me a copy. I sighed and thanked them for protecting Mom. What else could I do? After all, it’s not like they’re being jerks. They’re being cautious.
Back I went to the surgeon’s office and told them. The woman there wasn’t too happy with them. She said, “I’ll get it.”
And she did.
Not only that, but she gave us a copy of it, too. Win/win.
Just one of the little things—the tiny details.
In the examination room, the nurse put a wrist cuff on Mom for the blood pressure thing. For the record, Mom says they hurt less. They’re my new favorite thing, and I’ve never even used one.
She asked about medications, and Mom told her all the ones she was taking (not many) and the ones she had been taking and quit. Like her one for blood clots. The one that gave her nose bleeds and she’d never had those before. The nurse confirmed that was a common side effect. It was such a tiny thing, but Mom felt vindicated. Between being able to move around now, and having the screens in her veins in case one tried to go through, she decided not bleeding all over the place was preferable.
And the nurse didn’t even argue. Another tiny detail that wouldn’t matter to anyone but Mom.
When the surgeon came in (the guy who dealt with my stomach issues last year), he asked about her dermatomyositis, about why she’d had it put in, and took a look at it. He asked how long it had been there. We told him. He examined it, and then it happened. He said, “Oh. This is one that’s held in place by a balloon. I can deflate that and remove it here.”
We cheered. Seriously, some doctor 2.5 hours away just happened to put the kind of tube in that meant Mom could get it out fastest, easiest, and without having to go to an outpatient facility. She laid down, he jerked about 18 inches (man that sucker was LONG) of tubing out, she screamed (it hurt), and it was over. Pain, too. Done.
“It should heal up in three to ten days.”
For the record, Mom says it’s pretty much healed.
Seriously… tiny details.
After that, we went home, I grabbed #5 and #7daughters, and we went to the DMV.
There were two people ahead of us in line. We were told to go to the machines and fill out the information. We did. No more paper forms! YAY! Cassie would so approve.
Once finished, we got back in line and she gave us a number. I asked about the whole Real ID thing. After all, #7daughter will be traveling a lot soon. She needs to see #1daughter now and then, you know. After October, she can’t do that. It’s why #5daughter went, too.
Well, I asked what we’d need to upgrade a minor’s regular ID to a Real ID. The gal looked at everything and said, “Do you have a car registration with you? With your name on it?”
Nope. Not at all. We drove there in an unregistered car.
Okay, that’s only partly true. I informed her that we did have it and raced out to get it. When I did, I discovered something alarming.
Our registration expired in December.
If I hadn’t asked about that Real ID thing, we’d have been traveling around in an unregistered car until we got pulled over! I’m tellin’ you. It’s all about the tiny details!
So, we paid our bills, Lorna got her ID, and all that was hunky-dory.
Mom’s turn. She took all her stuff up there and had a problem. They wanted proof of residency. Mom has no bills at our house. The woman looked at me and said, “So… she lives with you?”
I nodded
“Just write her out a rental agreement.” So I started to do that.
Meanwhile, Mom said, “I know my driver’s license number from twenty-five years ago. Would that help?”
While I tried to come up with a rental agreement of “jokes and laughter” as terms, the woman looked it up. Then she looked at me. “Don’t need that. We’ve got it.”
Like I said. Tiny details.
Once we got us all legal-fied (and I didn’t even tell you how Mom’s ID will arrive just in time for #6daughter to practice on her at her new bank job), we went over to Pita Fresh for lunch. As we were going in, the owner of #7daughter’s ballet studio was coming out. She cornered me and gave me exciting news. Saturday (you know, this evening), at the movie night thing they’re doing, she’s being presented with pointe shoes. We might want to be there. Bring flowers. She just wanted us to know.
I’d been told about this, but not about the date. I have a game party at the exact same time tonight. Guess who’s gonna be late? But seriously, if she hadn’t seen me then, I wouldn’t have known about when until it was too late to do something special.
Look, I know the Lord orchestrates our lives into a beautiful symphony pleasing to His ears. I know it. But sometimes it feels like those harmonic notes filter down and reach our ears. Like on random Wednesdays in January.
On days when everything seems to go just a little bit wrong so God can remind me that He’s always there and will make everything right in His time.
Remember that “God’s got this,” reminder up there?
I wrote a book about that time. I fictionalized little bits, changed the names and made the people work with characters I already had, but it’s a thing. It’s not perfect, but it shows how God worked in the lives of our family and many people when, as my grandson put it, A Bird Died.
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