Dad was still struggling with sickness and tummy pain today, which is rather discouraging for him after several days of feeling better last week. No "reason" for the pain has been offered by medical staff yet, so we're not really sure what's going on there. We so wish he could have some more days without pain and discomfort.
When we got home from the hospital last night, we watched one of those so-called "heartwarming" Christmas films that are on all the movie channels at this time of year. This one was about a couple who had lost their teenage son in a car accident during a previous Christmas season, and the "happy ending" was when they decided to adopt a little girl who had been orphaned just before the upcoming Christmas. At one point in the film, the husband, who was a pilot, said he'd been taught in flying school that, "You can't change the wind or the weather, but you can choose the altitude of your plane." It made me think that life is like that: we have very little control over our circumstances, especially the difficult things like illness, pain or family tragedy; the only thing that we do have control over is our own attitude and response to the trials. For me, as a Christian, that means making a daily choice to draw on God's strength and trust him amidst the ups and downs of our lives and circumstances.
