The Relay Devotionals

Out of Darkness, God Brings Light

By Amanda Hemenetz

It has been a rough past few months; one of life's roller coaster rides at its best.

My father had spinal surgery on May 22nd. Since then, he has been readmitted to the hospital twice--once for an infection and then again a week later for a serious reaction to his IV antibiotics. My mother became his unofficial IV nurse. Their living room became his home hospital room, complete with an IV pole and a card table covered with guaze bandages, seringes, and saline.

Dad returned home from his latest hospital visit on July 16 looking good and feeling well. He was off the IVs. We were in the clear.

Mom took him for a doctor's visit during the week. A blood test was performed just to make sure everything was healing. That next Friday, my parents received a phone call--The blood work came back. The infection was still present.

Saturday morning, a medical delivery came to the door. More bags of medicine. A more complex IV system, more for Mom to learn, more for Dad to have to put up with. Not to mention the chance of another reaction to more and different medicine. He would need the IV medication every eight hours, around the clock, for at least four weeks.

It was too much for Mom to handle. She hurried the delivery man out the door and let her emotions take over. As she cried tears of exasperation and fear, she reached for a little book she often turns to--a book only about four inches high, but filled with inspiration. It's the third book in a series by Robert Schuller entitled "God's Minute III", filled with uplifting thoughts for every day of the year. She turned to that day's page, July 22nd, and read "I see the smallest glimmer of hope even in the darkest of my days and in that hope is Your Presence, O Lord. Out of the darkness, You bring light again, and I begin to believe that all is well. Amen."

All is well. All will be well. Dad will be well, and someday my parents will be able to look back at these past few months and remember the hardship, but also be thankful that they were able to pull through with God's help and the help of the medical world. Dad will heal. God will prevail. Because "out of the darkness," God will "bring light again," and then all will be well. Mom enlarged July 22nd's page from that blessed little book of hers and hung it on the refrigerator--a daily reminder that, in the eyes of God, all is well.

(Amanda Hemenetz is a resident of Hopatcong, NJ, and a student at Drew Theological Seminary in Madison)

Greater New Jersey Annual Conference