Quarantine!

 Well, spending three weeks shut up with three sick children will certainly give you a different perspective on life. 😀 Having contracted a serious cough which was also considerably contagious, we felt it was best to keep our family away from others. So we instituted a self-imposed quarantine to protect the general population. This of course did not prevent me from contracting the disease myself. (It has required me to be out of work for eight days.)

This quarantine was instigated in the middle of our long-awaited and planned vacation. It was still a pleasant time with family, but several of the things we had hoped to do on vacation were incompatible with the requirements of quarantine.

This cough was of such a nature that it is most severe at night. This means that our children were, and indeed some still are, waking up from a dead sleep in the throes of a coughing fit so intense that it made it hard for them to breathe at first. (I experienced this myself once or twice.) This was very frightening for them, and not very much less frightening for their parents. Watching your child thrashing and struggling for breath for 10 to 15 seconds is a very troubling experience, to put it mildly.  

Now imagine it happening 4 or 5 times in one night. Now imagine three children sick with this cough at the same time. What this means is parents that must rise to comfort and care for a panicked child, some nights, every hour on the hour all night long!  And imagine three weeks (approx.) of this happening every night. Now you might have a glimpse of the struggle our family has experienced recently. Sleep is currently worth it’s weight in gold around here!

Indeed we have experienced many pressures or sorrows recently, including the passing of a dear friend. Our dog Missy finally passed away after a long and happy life. Unfortunately this happened while we were on vacation so we could not “say good-bye” in the customary way. Telling my boy that the dog he has known since the day he was born has died is another experience I do not wish to repeat. The fewer times that happens the better. However, I don’t imagine it will prevent us from getting another canine companion before many months have passed. (But that topic is still hard for me to even consider. The wound is still healing.)

So sick children, sick father, no work, exhausted mother, stunted vacation, dead dog…it all adds up to a very fine complaining blog hasn’t it? *sigh* No, we are really not in such a bad temper as that, and certainly not after the hymn the Lord spoke to my heart this evening:

Jesus is all the world to me; I want no better friend.
I trust Him now; I’ll trust Him when life’s fleeting days shall end.
Beautiful life with such a Friend;
Beautiful life that has no end!
Eternal life! Eternal joy!
He’s my Friend.

What a good friend we have in Jesus, and even in the troubles of life he is an ever faithful guide and fortress. And the great thing is that the blessedness of joy in a life with such a friend need never end. “Eternal life, eternal joy!” An eternal life with Christ means an eternal life of joy! And this eternal life has begun already. This thought comforts us in the midst of great turmoil.

Trust me…I know.  🙂