Ten days ago, Mike and I were mourning the looming loss of our friend Mary, 89, who had been battling COVID-19 for nearly two weeks. Medical personnel in the ICU uttered those dreaded words, “It doesn’t look good.”
And today? We just received word that Mary is heading for home, not heaven. Not yet anyway. Despite the grim prognosis, her body is winning the battle against the disease that has the world in its talons.
We asked our friend Bill, a physician, about the prognosis for those who become infected with COVID-19.
“Scientists and researchers are constantly tracking infections and recoveries,” he commented. “But they have data only on confirmed cases, so they can’t count people who don’t get COVID-19 tests. Experts also don’t have information about the outcome of every infection.
“However, early estimates predict that the overall COVID-19 recovery rate is between 97% and 99.75%.”
I’ll take every necessary precaution, but I’ll also take those odds.
Have you longed and prayed for something for so long you’ve given up hope it will ever happen? Resignation is not always a bad thing. Acceptance often brings peace.
But hear me now: We need to stop putting our inner pessimist on the platform and handing that loud-mouth the microphone. I’m tired of lowering my expectations to avoid disappointment. Aren’t you?
If this is where you are, know that God desires our happiness just as those of us who are parents delight in providing for our own kids.
“No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.” 1 Corinthians 2:9
That child who has strayed so far away you fear she’ll never return? The marriage that seems irretrievably, irrevocably broken? The medical diagnosis that speaks of endings but not beginnings?
Don’t assume that since nothing appears to be happening in your situation right now, God is not at work. Let’s not factor the Father out. He can do above and beyond what we ask or imagine – not just for your holiness but for your happiness as well.
When your desired outcome seems too good to be true? It might just be anyway. God intends good things for his children, on earth as well as in heaven.
Even if you’re on the shady side of 65, like I am, you have new milestone moments ahead – people to meet and places to go, pandemic or no, and miracles that will spring forth out of barren places.
How can I know this for sure?
Because I had a baby today.
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Maggie’s first book, This Life We Share, releases May 5, 2020.
This excerpt adapted from This Life We Share by Maggie Wallem Rowe. Copyright © 2020. Used by permission of NavPress. All rights reserved. Represented by Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.
