Sometimes Broken Plans Are God’s Way of Saying Let Me Handle This

They might be part of the bigger picture; to make you the person you are today

Photo by Stefan Stefancik from Pexels

Nothing had gone according to plan that day. I’d already had enough of the uncertainty and anxiety caused by the recent turn of events. I had arrived at the hospital early morning, only to receive news that only exacerbated my anxiousness — the doctors had decided not to go ahead with the planned surgery.

I went looking for my husband. He was standing outside the doctor’s room, waiting for me. I tried reading his face from the distance. I was overwhelmed with pessimism; all kinds of questions and thoughts crossed my mind as I walked up to him.

“What’s happening? Why did they cancel the surgery? Is everything okay?”

“Just calm down,” he’d replied. “Everything’s fine; the doctors want to discuss some more options with us before they go ahead.”

Now, this thing called change irks me. Change in plans that have taken my time and energy makes it to the top of my list. The decision to go for surgery, in this case, had been one which was well thought out and seemed logical. So it didn’t make sense to me why, after everything we’d done, should we back out at the last moment.

We had been living like any other ordinary family out there, going about our normal business and daily routines when one day everything changed.

My son, seven years old at the time, had come to me pale-faced and told me about this excruciating pain in the left side of his abdomen. We took him to the hospital, where, at first his doctor suggested it was due to constipation and stomach gases.

My son had previously been treated for those and I could tell it was different this time. He was in terrible agony. His pain was intolerable.

An ultrasound revealed that his left kidney had severe back pressure, known as ‘hydronephrosis’. The doctor ordered some more tests to determine what caused it. I held his hand while we waited for the CT scan.

He looked up to me teary-eyed, hoping mommy could lessen his pain, and all I could do was stroke his hand, rub his back and tell him everything would be okay.