Amidst all the joy and relief of going HOME Thursday with a relatively healthy child and not back to the big hospital with a collapsed lung child, I should have been feeling ecstatic or something exuberant, but later that evening when I got to hang out with my Bible Study ladies they asked me to rate overall how I was doing on a scale of one to ten.

I stopped to evaluate, and I realized to my surprise that I couldn't really give them an answer.  It's like this: right that second, I would say I was at an 8 or 9.  Because my girl is home - in pain - but home.  My husband is home with her, and he is vigilant, which then made me capable of being out with my friends for the first time in a month.  And my MJ and VeeVee would be returning home the next day which is the happiest!  

I tried not very successfully to describe how I felt.  I can evaluate that second, but I cannot say overall how I am doing.  Because "overall" includes past seconds and the possible prediction of near future seconds, and past seconds have been awful - a zero on a scale of one to ten.  And near future seconds, I have learned, have no guarantee of being anything anybody wants to live through.  So giving an overall evaluation didn't feel like something I was capable of.

Later, I was chatting with another dear friend who at first assumed I was feeling morose, but I wasn't.  She tried to cheer me up by saying things like, "The worst is behind you."  But I don't know if that statement is actually true or not.  I hope it is true.  I tried to explain to her the precariousness of our situation.  The surprise trip to the emergency room that day which could have easily put us right back in a long term chest tube situation was a perfect example of how precarious this new life is, and dealing with that reality can be hard.  

After my explanation, she understood, and together we got to praise God over the fact that He is in every second.  The good ones, the bad ones, the past ones, the present ones, and the future ones.  There is a peace and joy innate in knowing no matter what comes next, God will be there with us just like He was with us through all the past events.  Sometimes He steps in and changes things; sometimes He wraps His arms around and holds us in the things.  But He is always there.

That is what I explained to my wonderful friend.  That I have one second to live in, and that is this second right here.  I am happy and content and living it fully.  And although I have to be aware and have to have a plan ready to activate for possibly awful future seconds, I don't have to dwell on what might happen in future seconds because I have God's certainty that He will be just as present and capable in those seconds as He has been in past seconds.

And that is my overall evaluation for now.  :-)