The second week of Easter is the week of Doubting Thomas. It is one of the readings that usually stab me quite hard in the heart because my faith is weak. While it is easy to say "I believe", "I trust", "I surrender everything to God" when things are well, that is not the case when time is hard. Since the past week, I received the news that my dad was unable to walk due to increasing weakness and numbness on the legs, followed with loss of bladder control, and finally with the tumour metastases to the spine.
Of course I am far and there is nothing I can do. In fact, ever since his colon surgery in 2015, I sort of surrender everything to God. I am not an expert but I learnt a bit about cancer and based on the condition described by the surgeon at that time, every additional day is God's blessings. After hearing the news, there is nothing I can do, except to pray so that God will be with my family back at home. I am also more worried about my mum and my sisters if they are prepared for the worst possible outcome since after all, this is a spinal surgery. However, even though I know that there is nothing I can do but pray, worrying does not help, bla bla bla, from the moment I heard of the confirmed timing for the surgery until the end of surgery, my heart simply could not palpitating. The fear, the worry, the anxiety, the dark thoughts were all there despite all the praying.
Thank God that all our prayers have been heard. I was so relieved when I heard that the surgery only took about 90 minutes. Now the concern changes to the recovery and if he can walk again. I continue to pray that God will be kind and merciful. I still dream of going overseas to have fun with my parents at Disneyland leh :(
I am feeling a bit torn. A part of me prefers to be heartless: I don't bother to ask for news and updates and I take it as no news means good news. Perhaps they are busy or perhaps they do not want to trouble me. However, another part of me feels quite irked with the lack of updates. No matter how heartless I am, I am still concerned about my dad mah. I felt more at peace after reading my old post during my dad's previous surgery: they are really useless so don't bother about stressing them more for info lah.
Thanks to the circuit breaker, I finally dusted my toys on the Saturday before Easter. I have been procrastinating about it for God knows how long. I will keep the emo parts about my toys for another post. Usually I will not really bother about dusting the shelf where I put all my prayer stuff. This time, however, I really cleaned all my shelves and it made me open a prayer collection book that I received from my aunt many years back. I cannot even remember if I have ever used it before. I flipped it open and prayer cards for asking intervention to St Jude. I don't even know if I bought the cards previously or they have all the while been there.
After hearing about my dad, there is really nothing I can do except prayer so this prayer book has been a miracle for me. I randomly tried to find a suitable prayer and in one, there is a mention of St Peregrine. My first time encountering this name was prior to my Baptism when I was shopping for souvenirs in exchange of the gifts from people who congratulated me on my Baptism. Ever since, I always remember him as a patron saint for cancer patients.
I am feeling a bit torn. A part of me prefers to be heartless: I don't bother to ask for news and updates and I take it as no news means good news. Perhaps they are busy or perhaps they do not want to trouble me. However, another part of me feels quite irked with the lack of updates. No matter how heartless I am, I am still concerned about my dad mah. I felt more at peace after reading my old post during my dad's previous surgery: they are really useless so don't bother about stressing them more for info lah.
Thanks to the circuit breaker, I finally dusted my toys on the Saturday before Easter. I have been procrastinating about it for God knows how long. I will keep the emo parts about my toys for another post. Usually I will not really bother about dusting the shelf where I put all my prayer stuff. This time, however, I really cleaned all my shelves and it made me open a prayer collection book that I received from my aunt many years back. I cannot even remember if I have ever used it before. I flipped it open and prayer cards for asking intervention to St Jude. I don't even know if I bought the cards previously or they have all the while been there.
After hearing about my dad, there is really nothing I can do except prayer so this prayer book has been a miracle for me. I randomly tried to find a suitable prayer and in one, there is a mention of St Peregrine. My first time encountering this name was prior to my Baptism when I was shopping for souvenirs in exchange of the gifts from people who congratulated me on my Baptism. Ever since, I always remember him as a patron saint for cancer patients.
St Jude is the patron saint for hopeless/desperate cases and yes, I was very worried for my dad's surgery. Now that the surgery was over with little concern, that means what I feared the most did not come true and my prayer has been granted. According to the prayer cards, if the prayer is answered, I am supposed to send a testimony to someone (whom I do not even know if he is still alive since I do not know how long ago this card was distributed) or to distribute or leave behind 9 copies of the prayer cards in Church (this is in the Indonesian prayer card so noone will understand if I leave it here and now we are in lockdown). Since I am not able to do both, the very least that I can follow is to write this experience now. I do not think people are reading my blog but I will never know God's plan. If it is His plan, perhaps this story in this obscure blog may be chanced upon by someone in need.
I will close with a funny thought that perhaps Thomas is the source of the exclamation: Oh My God! Hahaha. Somehow I suddenly had this thought only this year.
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