I’m really tired of all the bad news, so I’m taking a break and writing something positive for a change.  I think I’ve told this story before, but because of the nature of this post, I’ll tell it again.

I come from a long family history of bowel disease.  Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis runs in my family.

Starting in my early 20’s I started to have symptoms.  Having seen how bad this disease could be in family members, I got very depressed.  Fortunately for me, I didn’t get it that bad.  I’m still mostly fully functioning without surgery and only oral medication.

However, my attitude shifted on this about 10 years go.

I hurt on the inside more than I’ve ever hurt before.  My wife drove me to the hospital curled up in the truck of the SUV, because I couldn’t sit in a seat.

I ended up seeing a specialist who ordered among other things an abdominal CT with IV contrast.

At 8:00 PM the night after my CT, she called me, which is always a bad sign.  My bowel looked fine but there was a spot on my kidney that should not be there and she set up an appointment with a friend who is a urologist, the next day.

I saw him, he looked at my chart and said “I don’t know what that is, but it shouldn’t be there, we’re going to cut it out and biopsy it later.  Be back the day after tomorrow.”

In 48 hours I had surgery.  What was pulled out of me, besides a rib, was a very malignant cancer the size of a walnut.  Very malignant.

I was told that the type of cancer that I had was a death sentence if it had progressed far enough for me to become symptomatic, such as seeing blood in my urine.  To drive this point home, my mother’s best friend’s brother was diagnosed with the same type of cancer that I was, about the same time that I was, but he was symptomatic, which is why they found it.  Despite very aggressive chemo and radiation, he died about six months later.

I’ve been cancer-free for 10 years and never had to go through chemo.

I would be dead right now, if not for my bowel disease because it was that CT scan that found my cancer before it hat progressed to the point where it was both symptomatic and terminal.

The Lord works in mysterious ways.

I was laid off in December from a job that I loved.  I cannot describe how much I loved that job, except to say that it fit me like it was made for me.  There was only one problem, the salary was not great.  The entire industry I worked in was like that.

Some military contractors get paid huge bucks for developing advanced technology (aerospace).  Others get squeezed on margin by bean-counters.  I worked for the latter.  It didn’t bother me at the time because I loved what I did so I really didn’t care about the money.

The layoff prompted a job search, and I am happy to announce I signed on with a new company on the other side of the defense contracting word and that job comes with a 20% increase in base salary.

The Lord works in mysterious ways.

I have a friend, he’s almost a brother, I’ve known him since the 7th grade.  He worked for one of the “too big to fail” banks on Wall Street.  He was downsized the same day that I was.  I know it’s been tough for him.  I completely understand that.

But… he used to commute from Connecticut to NYC.  He would have to drive from his home to one train to get to NY, then take another train to get to NYC, then the subway to get to his office.  It was a two-and-a-half-hour commute each way.  (Also a reason why I’m glad I don’t work in finance and/or NYC)

The news for days has been saying that despite the warnings, New Yorkers are not practicing social distancing, especially on public transportation.

I talked to my buddy.  He hasn’t had to go into the city since he cleaned out his office in December.

The Lord works in mysterious ways.

I know that what is going on right now sucks, and sucks hard for the lot of us, however, it is at this moment that I am reminded of the words that President Abraham Lincoln spoke on September 30, 1859, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, at the Wisconsin State Fair:

It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentiment to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words, “And this, too, shall pass away.” How much it expresses! How chastening in the hour of pride; how consoling in the depths of affliction! “And this, too, shall pass away.” And yet, let us hope, it is not quite true. Let us hope, rather, that by the best cultivation of the physical world, beneath and around us, and the intellectual and moral worlds within us, we shall secure an individual, social, and political prosperity and happiness, whose course shall be onward and upward, and which, while the earth endures, shall not pass away.

Or for a little bonus Sunday music, this song by Danny Schmidt:

This too shall pass, and I cannot help but believe, that at the end of this we will find that we were better off for one reason or another and that what we need to do is that although we can only see these things in hindsight, we must trust that the Lord works in mysterious ways.