Case 1: A healthy, robust middle aged healthy business owner, active in church, family, and community was looking forward to retirement a few years down the road. However, he suffered a very severe stroke while dressing for work one morning months ago. Recovery is exceptionally slow. Result--family turned upside down.
Case 2: A happily married retirement age couple. The husband finally retires after a successful career. They had lived wisely, saved toward retirement, and envisioned years of travel that they had planned for all of their lives. Not long after his retirement, the wife became different, and was ultimately diagnosed with dementia. She went downhill fast, soon not even remembering that they were married. Result--family turned upside down.
In both of those cases, all of the parties were churched people, and were folks who had a solid spiritual grounding. In neither situation did any family member cave in to "why me" self pity, bitterness, or doubt in their faith. In neither situation did any family member get mad at God. And, in neither case did any family member jump ship because of the horrific inconvenience a never dreamed of medical crisis caused.
The truth is, these are but two stories of catastrophic circumstances that can happen to a couple and a family. There are many, many others out there. And many have very different endings. I'm sure we have all heard of at least one tragic situation that ended up splitting a family up....and perhaps we thought "what would I do?"
Now the hard question....what would you do? What would I do? Hard ball questions, yes? I think we would all like to think that we would stay the course, that abandonment wouldn't even pop up. And, perhaps, initially (say months) after a catastrophic event struck the family, we would stay the course. That said, isn't it possible that after a longer time, say years, we may start, or be tempted to think otherwise? Yes, hard ball.
How we conduct our lives now (and now includes right up until the time of an eventual, if ever, catastrophic family event) will govern how you handle it if and when it comes. If God is at the core of our believing, if He is our guide, if He is the centerpiece of our lives.....then I suspect that we will never be tempted to abandon any situation we are faced with, because we will have an unrelenting faith that He will see us through. And we will serve with honor and dignity. And we will continue to love. And we will remain strong. That's what God does for us. That's His job. And He doesn't abandon....or even think of it.
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