We Know the One Who Knows

Don't we all have milestone in our lives that lead us to dream of what life will be like?  I think of the graduations going on right now and all of the young people getting ready to take the next step in their lives.  Getting engaged, getting married, having children, changing jobs - all are milestones that lead us to think about the future and the way we would like our lives to be.


As we move forward with each day our hopes, our dreams and our plans will be challenged by things that we can control and by things we cannot.  New information presents itself so we have decisions to make.  A new relationship, a failed test, a job offer in another state, an unexpected illness - these and many other things will alter our path. 

Our family's story began with a circumstance that we did not choose.  Plans were already made to attend college, to walk onto the college track team, to pursue a military career and to get married.  This was a very tall order for an ambitious nineteen year old and his "slightly older" girlfriend.  So imagine just weeks before getting married being told by a specialist that you have two autoimmune diseases, both with no cures and no treatments.  Imagine being told that your life will be cut short unless you have a life-saving transplant within a handful of years.  We definitely did not choose this circumstance but every day we did have a choice on how to respond to it.

Being that young and being dealt a pretty big blow, we could have reacted in many ways to the news but in reality we both knew that for some of our plans to move forward we only had one option.  Our choice from the very beginning was to place this circumstance God's hands.  We simply committed to each other, committed to serve God in all that we did and then let Him design our future.  Yes, many plans were altered and many dreams were crushed but as one door closed, God WAS always there to open another. 

When we reflect upon the initial diagnosis and prognosis we have been granted a life much better than the doctors predicted.  We have been granted a life much better than we could have planned.  And even though the circumstance is still there and we don't know the future, we do know the ONE who knows the future!