On Jan. 6, 2021, Mom started dying.
Covid had assaulted her lungs for about 10 days, and finally, pneumonia hospitalized her Monday, Jan. 4.
And on Wednesday, Jan. 6, doctors decided to vent her.
But about 75 percent of people survive and breathe on their own, someone told me that evening.
Perhaps I heard wrong, however, because the next day, a nurse told me that 75 percent of people Mom’s age never breathe on their own again.
They eventually never breathe again.
Thankfully, God graciously included Mom in the 25 percent that survived, though given her condition, I believe He unleashed a miracle.
Regardless of how He spared her, though, no one in the family will ever forget Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2021.
Oh, and apparently something else happened that day in Washington, D.C.
Of course, those in the Capitol building — which crowds entered to protest the 2020 election (or mobs stormed to overturn democracy, depending on the person’s partisanship) — will rightfully remember that day for different reasons.
And people in other countries will remember that day for reasons unrelated to either my mom or this country’s chaos.
People primarily filter their perspectives through those moments that most directly impact them.
God alone can see Jan. 6, 2021, from an eternal, all-knowing perspective, and people will keep a better perspective on that day if they filter their perspectives through the Bible and not the frothing-at-the-mouth perspectives from social media, talk radio, political pundits and TV reporters who vented more than they reported on former President Donald Trump’s indictment Wednesday.
God alone also sees the significance of each second of every other day as they combine, like rain drops, to create the river of time.
“For I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure,” God told the Prophet Isaiah.
Admittedly, no one can ever fully fathom God’s omniscience, just as no one can fully fathom His eternal existence.
Fortunately, they don’t need to fathom it to follow it and reap its blessings. They just need a childlike faith, one that trusts and obeys His commands and principles no matter how much shifting circumstances and new worldviews question, ridicule and compromise them. Regardless of the world and some theologians’ opinions, God foresaw each moment ever to happen when He commanded Christians to not resist their enemies, lay up treasures in Heaven, reach out to society’s outcasts, defend His standards for marriage, and defend His Word that reveals His wisdom, starting in Genesis 1:1.
God, though, doesn’t just omnisciently understand. He applies that omniscience in love, orchestrating — or at least permitting — circumstances ultimately for people’s good.
“Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘what shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your Heavenly Father knows that you need all these things,” Jesus told His disciples. “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”
And if those circumstances lead to suffering, people don’t need to question if God knows about the trials they’re facing.
“For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him,” the author of 2 Chronicles writes.
God, however, doesn’t promise to “show Himself strong” right away, as those in prison and the families of martyrs can testify.
Sometimes, God doesn’t heal the person on the vent.
But He still knows, and someday He will redeem those trials for His glory and the believer’s joy.
“For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”
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