[mrnoodle]

Today at 2:45 we will hear the pathology results.

That sentence looks so mundane. Nine words, a simple statement of fact. How many times have I read something similar from someone else? Did I ever have a reaction? I can't remember.

All I know is that those words contain more meaning than can be conveyed. Every one has its own significance. Today at 2:45 life is going to change forever.

Again.

And once again, I have to surrender what I can't change to God. I hate doing that. And I hate how Sunday School that sentence looks. But this is where peace comes from, and occasionally I get a thump upside the head to remind me of that fact.

I don't mean to make it sound like my dad having cancer is somehow all about me. Each of us, including dad, is dealing with this surrender in our individual way. I can only speak to what I'm feeling. And right at this moment, I poignantly feel the difference between hope in a living God and simple resignation to the inevitable. My lack of faith has come through too many times (dozens on this board alone) for this to sound like any more than a reaction to grief by someone who uses religion for a crutch. I'll take my hits for hypocrisy, and I'm smart enough to know what events like this can do to someone psychologically. But I wish you could experience the clarity I feel right now. I never got it from drugs, from new age crystal gazing, from rolling in the peat with mother nature. Only from God.

Here's where a polite person would put "YMMV" or some other weak-kneed "not that I'm saying my god is the ONLY one" disclaimer. I just can't.

Thanks for your prayers and good wishes, they mean a lot.

Logging off for a few days, probably. I'll keep you posted.