Marv and I have had an unexpected detour in our lives. So I ask you, what would you call it if:

1. your husband is scheduled for an elective surgery that he could have chosen not to get and, during the pre-op work-up, something suspicious shows up on the test results that requires follow-up?

2. your husband calls and asks you to come along to a doctor appointment at a certain time and you happen to be free only at that time?

3. the situation in number 2 happens a second time?

4. the situation in number 2 and 3 happens a third time, only this time it’s with a different doctor?

5. you feel desperate and you call a friend who never has her cell phone with her, and even if she has it with her, it is not turned on, and you call and she answers?

6. you suddenly need to take a plane flight that would cost $750, and you remember that you just “happened” to have earned enough “miles” by applying for a new credit card that you can use now for scheduling that needed flight?

7. on the day of the newly needed surgery, three friends looking all over for you in a large hospital just “happen” to run into you in a corridor the thirty seconds you “happen” to be at that exact spot?

8. on the day of and on the day following the surgery, an out-of-town sister who is usually booked with necessary obligations, just “happens” to be free to come and sit with you?

9. seven hours after surgery, the surgeon, who has already talked to you once, giving you good news, “happens” to come by again to reassure you, when you “happened” to decide not to leave a waiting area to go for dinner even though you’d been told you could leave for an hour?

10. a stranger you met a week before in a strange city describes to you the exact unlikely good outcome in a similar situation that you’ve now had with your husband?

What would you call it?

I call it GRACE. God’s grace.

And I’m so thankful. And I thank all those people praying for and wishing Marv and me well in these past few days.

We no longer have to discuss the possibility of chemo. Radiation. DNRs.

And Marv is telling me to get back to my work. No more fussing about him. No more loafing around…