It has been an interesting month, one filled with unexpected weather and emotional challenges. I’ve always felt that February is the month that winter weather can really hit in my corner of Virginia. I base this on two big snowfalls that occurred years apart during this part of the winter season. We’ll, 2025 has not disappointed in that respect as we received four inches of snow early in the month, and a week or so later over twelve inches! It was so beautiful as a blanket of white carpeted everything and all activities stopped for several days, except for making soup, brewing cocoa with marshmallows, and shoveling a walkway for our 15-lb dog who jumped like a rabbit through the snow in our yard.

Moving from unexpected but beautiful weather to unexpected emotional challenges in the same time period adds an additional layer to life. Hence the title of my post. In less than a month, I faced the emergency surgery with less than a 50% chance of recovery for our little 8-lb. granddog to the life-threatening illness of a sweet colleague at my Bible study. Where did I go when all these worries that came from nowhere and over which I had no control hit me one after another? I went to my knees and prayed day after day, sometimes hour after hour. Over two to three weeks, our family’s furbaby made such an amazing recovery that his vet called him a “Superstar.” I credit God and lots of medicine and physical therapy from several family members for making the difference in what had seemed like a pretty hopeless situation. I move to outright praise in the situation of my Bible study friend who had battled an illness for over five weeks. Doctors seemingly had no answers or cure as she entered the hospital twice in increasingly worse condition. As the prayers for her increased from her family, our study group, and her church members, she moved from a discussion of hospice care to waking up, recognizing her family, and communicating with others. She has a long recovery ahead of her, but praise God, we are now talking about recovery!

Where do you go when impossibly bad things happen? My trecommendation is to the only One who has the control over the answers. However, I have to be real here. I could be sharing the story of a dog who didn’t recover or a friend whose funeral I had to attend. When we go to Him, we have no more control over the situation than we had before, but we give the bad thing to God Who has control over everything. If the answer is not what we hoped, we accept that He knows better than we do what is best, realizing that He will always be with us in the good times and bad, as was promised in Hebrew 13:5.

God bless – Sue