I’ve got a couple hours free between appointments to look for handicap accessible apartments with my mom. Just eleven months earlier, my husband and I took her to look at apartments in our town. And now we’re revisiting all the same places and adding some new ones to the list. It’s deja vu all over again. I thought when we completed our major move from one coast to another that I was through with all this. But in our first year, this will be the second time I’ve helped my parents move. It’s hard on me; I can’t imagine how difficult it is for them. I should know by now that life doesn’t always turn out the way we expect.

The doctors are encouraged with my father’s progress. He can now raise his leg about six inches. Great news! Even though he’s far from independent, Medicare has deemed him ready to be released from the hospital. His release date on Tuesday coincides with an expected snowstorm and a 22 degree high temperature. Not good news. When Dad left in the ambulance a month ago, it was autumn. Now it is the dead of winter.

My husband will build a makeshift wheelchair ramp out of plywood and wheel him uphill, maybe over snow drifts. And Dad will not leave until the day we move them into the more suitable apartment, sometime after Christmas. Men from three churches in town have volunteered to help. Wonderful news! One thing that sets these guys apart from friends in California is that they all have pick-up trucks.

Yes, life is unexpected. But knowing that none of this took God by surprise comforts me. Trusting that He has not stopped being sovereign and having our best interests at heart – well, there’s no better news than that.