Snapshots, The Big Picture, and The BIG Picture

Linda is home. She is really glad to be home, and we are all thrilled to have her here! She is having a good day. If I had written yesterday, I would have said that she was having a difficult day. Whenever I give a report about how she is doing, it is simply a snapshot, a small piece of a puzzle, or only a portion of a much larger picture. I spoke with several doctors while Linda was in the hospital. One doctor told us that we could be talking a year from now about the same issues she is struggling with now because the tumor is not growing at all (though some problems clearly emanate from the brain). The biggest concern at present is that she is extremely susceptible to infection right now. That is apparent when you consider how very rare listeria meningitis is for adults.

I tend to be fairly analytical. As you might imagine, there is plenty to analyze with Linda's illness, but since her various maladies and symptoms are ever-changing, I tend to go up and down with her condition - thus, my many references to the roller coaster ride we are on.

Since I often report on the snapshot, you may not get an accurate sense of the big picture. I know that some of you have read the blog or spoken to me on the phone for a report and you perceive one thing, but then you hear a very different report from another family member or someone else close to the situation. Which report is accurate? Both are! But they are only a small part of the big picture, or really, more like a very small piece of a mosaic. Also, like a mosaic, the image is not always crystal clear even when you have the whole picture.

So, what are we to do with so very many different parts of a picture? I have decided to take the advice, offered at different times, by Autumn (our daughter) and by Virginia (Linda's mother): take it, not day by day, but hour by hour.

In general (disregarding my commitment announced in the last paragraph), Linda is doing better. She has a headache tonight, but not nearly as much fatigue, nausea, and confusion as she has had in the last week. She is much better today, actually, than she was yesterday. I will stop there even though I am tempted to go further.

So, the big picture is in the Lord's hands as He puts the pieces into place - and we must trust Him for the finished product. Besides, when we focus only on the pictures that come into view in this world, we miss the BIG picture. Some good friends from the NC Mountains sent us some verses from 2 Corinthians 4 (as they are written in The Message) that have long guided us in our difficulties - verses 15-18:

"So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without His unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever.”

Now, that's THE BIG PICTURE!