Dangling?

I didn't mention to you that while I was on vacation, we got a phone call from my sister-in-law, Laurie, telling us that a tumor had been discovered in my father-in-law's colon. That was on a Friday. On Monday, I learned that my own father was in the hospital with chest pains. Later when I visited him in the hospital I learned that there was an unknown mass in his left lung. Monday night, Laurie called again to tell us that the tumor in my father-in-law's colon is cancerous. Two days later, the dreaded news came that my own father has lung cancer. The following day my mother told me that the doctors estimated that Dad has up to three months to live. Meanwhile, my in-laws are struggling with what to do about Dad B's cancer. It is stage 1, but Dad B is high risk for surgery since he is 86, has diabetes, and is in very poor health. The surgery alone may very well kill him.

I knew that I needed to postpone my grad work. I set that in motion on Friday, a week after the first of the bad news came in. There were emails to send, phone calls to make, and forms to fill out. Everything is so uncertain now. Just a week earlier I had been enjoying a mountaintop experience in New Hampshire with my family...and now I feel like I am left dangling on the edge. Vicky, the wife of one of my second cousins gave me a little food for thought that was comforting. She left it on the wall of my facebook account. She wrote:

“Never be afraid to trust an unknown future to a known God.” Corrie Ten Boom

So I guess I'm not really dangling on the edge...it just feels and looks like I am. Kind of like Jamie here on the top of Firescrew Mountain in New Hampshire. It only looks like he is dangling precipitously over a three thousand foot ledge. Actually, the rock gently slopes downward and he is practically laying on it.