Living in the "Now"

After initial diagnosis, and the difficult weeks and months of accepting our new reality, our family has settled into a sort of floating routine.  I think of it as floating down a river.  We have lots of moments of relative calm punctuated by the necessity of getting through unexpected rough water. As with any chronic disease, we are finding ways to live in the moment while knowing that there are troubled waters ahead.

Occasionally, we have to discuss our future.  What do we want and how do we want to plan for Lacy's needs?  We know what is ahead, and even though we've settled into a predictable pattern, the truth of what we are facing is always at the back of our minds.  As difficult as it is right now, this is easy compared to what we have to look forward to.  I don't mean looking forward in terms of happy anticipation, but of accepting the progression of HD as a reality we must face.

When I was still in college, my friend and I used to project into the future year.  We'd discuss what we thought would happen.  We would lay out our hopes and dreams for the coming months.  This was all done with the certainty that our future held lots of good things and that we would meet new and exciting challenges in the year ahead.

Projecting now is not an entirely pleasant exercise.  The future is one that is entirely uncharted for us and is, in a way, unthinkable right now.  So we do our projecting in the abstract.  When we retire...When we have the house paid off...

We don't need to live in that projected future.  Having the HD diagnosis means we focus on the "now."  Today is the best it will be.  

When my friend and I spent those hours wondering about the future, we were confident that God would guide us throughout the coming year.  We put or future in God's hands knowing that He had a plan and that His plan was much better than our projections.  Kenny and Lacy and I are putting ourselves in God's hands.   An old gospel song includes the phrase "I know not what the future holds, but I know Who holds the future."    Today is all we need to focus on, living in the "now."

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