the call

the call......you know... THE CALL.... the one you fear.... maybe itʼs a stereotype from books or maybe itʼs from movies .. I am not talking about a call like “you have won the lottery” but more like, Iʼm sorry to tell you that.......you fill in the blank.. I remember that I had a BAD false alarm years ago ..... I was 22 and newly married... My mom had been sick for years with congestive heart failure and I was always scared that something would happen to her and I would get “the call”..... Well, one morning the phone rang and it was my dad and he says in a very somber voice, “Well Iʼve got some bad news”.... my heart sank and with immediate tears I asked a shaky, squeaky, “what?”.... Dad then went on to tell me that he had forgotten to turn off the kiln at my parents house and that all the ceramics that I had painted had been ruined by over-firing! WHAT? Was I relieved?? A moment of fear and waiting to hear the worst..... THE CALL!

Another infamous CALL came many years later for me on Memorial Day, Saturday morning, 3 years ago..........My kids were just out of school for the summer, I was feeling carefree, dad was in a rehab and about to come back home.... we were touring a home show when THE CALL came from one of my sisterʼs... “I just wanted you to know that dad is on oxygen”......I think to myself, “Are you trying to ruin my perfectly good day”.... what could that mean, why are you telling me this now...is this even important.... But even then, I didnʼt know the significance of it all. Dad ended up being taken to the ER later that day and things continued to change and get worse by the day.....Change can be scary for us. When events or conditions change, as they will, we have ONE who does not change.... we do not have to fear “the call” because we have one in control of all. We cannot control most of the change in our lives but we do have one we can trust and he himself and his character does not change.