Sufficient unto the Day is the Evil Thereof

 

[1]

Matthew 6:33-34 American Standard Version

³³ But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. ³⁴ Be not therefore anxious for the morrow: for the morrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

 

Ours has often been a life where we had enough of life’s necessities to get through each day but no cushion for emergencies. Of course, emergencies arose—they always do. When my cancer recurred, I went to an oncologist whose office was on the 10^th floor of magnificent medical building in Century City on the upscale side of Beverly Hills.

He showed me how he owns his own blood lab equipment and luxury patient treatment facilities. He spent several hours talking to me about my situation. It dawned more and more on me how much all of this must cost.

“I’m really impressed at what you will do for me. How am I going to pay for all this?” I queried.

He said simply, “You have Medicare, don’t you?”

He employs a full-time pharmacist who has gotten me a number of grants to help cover the expenses of outrageously expensive drugs I’ve needed. Some medical places around here have a policy that if you are over 15 minutes late to an appointment, you pay for the appointment, but they won’t see you or do anything to help you. Of course, insurance doesn’t pay if you miss an appointment.

With big city traffic, it’s very easy to be delayed much more than 15 minutes! My oncologist’s office is all the way across Los Angeles. It’s easy to get delayed an hour or more in the traffic. They have the same policy, but they tell me, “Just call us and let us know what’s happening.” They’ve never penalized me for being late.

As a retiree, I sometimes worry that my money will run out before both Sylvia and I have passed on. Then my thoughts return to the last sixty years and the fact that although at times we have been very short of funds, we have never gone hungry, nor have we ever been without a roof over our heads.

God will always take care of us!

Thank You, Lord, for Your constant care over us, in spite of some of the scrapes we get ourselves into!

 

__________________

[1] https://ccmpla.com/about/ 

 

Vaccine Competition

[i]

John 14:2

Good News Translation

² There are many rooms in my Father's house, and I am going to prepare a place for you. I would not tell you this if it were not so.

 

My oncologist instructed me to go and get vaccinated for COVID-19 before coming back to see him. I went to our Riverside County website to sign up for a vaccination. There I found four forms I had to fill out in order to request an appointment. Without an appointment it was impossible to get the vaccination. The county had just opened more appointments. I picked a site and started to quickly fille out the four forms. Before I got to the second form, I got the message: “Error due to the rate of applications.” I groaned and started again. This time the same thing happened.

I picked another site and started again. This time I got through three of the four forms. I was elated, except then I received a similar error message. So, I went through site after site and date after date. There were four vaccinations sites available and five dates available. When I had finished all the sites, I started again at the beginning. Finally, I got through all four forms and was given a review of all the data I had submitted.; I was exhausted but somewhat elated. Then I received another error message—just as fatal. I groaned and started again.

This time I got to the actual appointment site. The instructions were “Choose a time slot and register for it.” There were time slots starting at 8:00 a.m., then 8:07, 8:14, etc. all the way to 5:00 p.m. Next to each time slot was the message, “appointment not available.” My heart plummeted. Undaunted, I picked another site and started again. Same result. Finally, I worked my way through every site and every date and got the same message. All 1,280 slots had been taken by other people.

Not only was I totally exhausted, but I was just plain out of luck! What could I do? Absolutely nothing! I was like the invalid at the Pool of Bethesda. Every time the angel stirred the pool, (John 5:4) someone else made it into the pool before he could get there. Then Christ came along and bypassed the system. It was obvious I needed Christ to come along and help me bypass the system.

That’s exactly what happened in the person of Dr. Vo. That same afternoon Sylvia got an attack of hypertension, and I took her into the Riverside Medical Clinic Urgent Care. Dr. Vo urged both of us to register for the COVID vaccination at the RMC website. She checked it out, and because we were both patients of the RMC, we each already had a slot. We just had to accept them.

Thank You, Lord, that we already have rooms You have prepared for us in Your Father’s house. We eagerly accept them.

 

[1] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-distribute-a-covid-19-vaccine-ethically/

 

---

[i] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-to-distribute-a-covid-19-vaccine-ethically/