{WW} news

{WW} News

 

There is something so very splendid and exciting about the word news. I love to hear about a new baby, that company is coming or that some prayer has been answered. I love to hear about weddings and trips and gardens and books. I love to hear about your work and dreams, your thoughts and fears.

 

Very definitely, news can be terrifying and heart-stopping, as well. I’ll never forget my pounding heart, when as a teenager my mom woke me up at midnight and said my best friend, Char, wanted to talk to me. Her dad had died. The long drive to her house, by myself with all my stuff hastily thrown into a bag on the passenger seat is forever etched into my mind. Also, the memory of the six-in-the-morning call on Easter Monday, 2000, will always bring a small stab of pain. Gord and Adrian were missing.

 

Some news is so life changing and good and scary all at the same time. Like the phone call I got from my mom the day before my school year of teaching was done. Mom said her and dad wanted to meet me for supper in Grande Prairie and it didn’t matter if I missed singing with the youth in Hythe once again. I was literally sick that time. I will always hold dear the picture of my dad leaning against his pickup, grinning at me, as I drove into the restaurant parking lot. I jumped out of my little two-door cavalier and ran to my dad and hugged him. “Is it what I want?” I asked with tears in my eyes. My dad hugged me and said, “Yes, it’s what you want.”

 

Each baby has brought the same scary, good, life-changing feeling of news but I especially will always remember finding out about our last baby. Our boys were 8 and 10 and we had long given up on having any more children and it was tough. When I missed my period my first thought was cancer. I really wondered what was going on. By the time I was six weeks along I felt a little nauseous and I truly thought this must be the end. I did not let myself once think that I could be pregnant. We’d had too many disappointments. We were school board at the time and the day of yearend I was so exhausted. I went home to get something and ended up taking a two hour nap with no plans of any such thing. It was time to look into this. I booked an appointment at my doctor, going by myself and telling Pat I’d let him know if it was serious. When the doctor came into my room and told me the pregnancy test was positive, I was stunned into silence.

 

I suppose, no matter where we go and what we do, changes will come to us; news of weddings and babies and baptisms and ordinations. There will be deaths and hard times and sadness and grief. But there will be peace and God, through it all, if we are His.