I tell you right now, I was scared. I think I was more scared than my wife, who had the tumor. We began to get suspicious when her neck started swelling during the summer, about ten years ago. Everything was going well and we were both in good shape, exercising, enjoying life, dealing our youngest's last year of high school, with my wife performing most of the home-education chores, leaving just the math to me.

She noticed the lump below her face and told me about her concern, since she had no symptoms of pain or discomfort. A month later, the lump had increased slightly, but our doctor, a specialist in neck, sinus and facial maladies wasn't too troubled by the physical distortion, merely advising us to keep checking it and let him know if had any sudden changes.

August turned into September, which segued into October before he told us to make an appointment at a nearby hospital for surgery. None of the drawn out process had left me in comfort. I was scared, even more so than she, giving into fears of cancer, malignant tumors, gruesome dreams taking over my spotty sleep at night. She seemed completely serene, but her attitude was largely lost on me, thinking about how thoroughly inadequate I felt with two relatively young children still at home.

We drove to the hospital the morning of her proceedure, four hours before the doctor was to arrive, to prep with gown, IV's, the accoutrements of pre-surgery. When he finally appeared, I was in a highly anxious state, trying to hide my poor mental and emotional condition. She and I prayed and I sat in the recovery room, attempting to shut down my imagination which pinged off any available surface from my brain to the flat white walls of the couped up space to which the gurney would return. Nurses came in, and took her away.

The minutes ticked by while I tapped my watch, grumbled at the clock, and generally scowled at God for this unwanted intrusion into our peaceful lives. The kids were at home, quietly dealing with the unwelcome situation in which our entire family found ourselves, even though it would be past in a matter of hours.

Just sixty seven minutes later, she, the bed, and the smiling nurses reappeared, while my wife was still sedated. Our doctor was beaming to my enormous relief! "She is fine, the tumor turned out to be merely fatty tissus wrapped around a lymph node." Although benign, it was slowlyl strangling the gland, so it was necessary to cut it out, which had been completely successful.

Within 15 minutes, she was awake and curious, though the smiles of everyone around lent an air of happiness and she knew immediately that she was going to be ok. I remembered that verse in Isaiah to my chagrin, but thankful that God had bypassed my personal "cold sweats" and brought her back to our home, alive and well. God is good in ANY circumstance, whether humanly successful or in His plan, a different outcome as would happen many years later. Faith is that calm in the face of the unknown, and God's preparation that day served us well as the years passed and we suffered other events.

"Do not be dismayed", the prophet writes, for our Father says, "I AM YOUR GOD!"