CATASTROPHE!!!

So, I'm feeling kinda weepy right now.

Since my daughter spent several days in the hospital, I have been pinching pennies knowing that the hospital bills would be coming in. Every penny counts, right?!

Well, we just received some of the bills in the mail today... and I'm sure they're not the end of what we'll see. So far, we've been charged around $19,000. Pennies all of a sudden seem like a moot point.

I wasn't crying about that. I knew things would be expensive. I had geared up for that while she was still in the hospital!

However, something else we received was from our insurance, DMBA. That's what made me cry. The happy, grateful kind of cry...

Miriam's bout with pneumonia racked up so many bills, the insurance company has declared it a catastrophe, and after we've paid the initial $4,000 they will pay the rest. Wow.

We have savings, and that's where most of our $4000 will be coming from.  Because of this "cap" on how much we'll end up paying, our savings won't be entirely wiped out -- which would have been another catastrophe. And we would have still owed more even then.

I'm so very, very grateful.

Of course, having a mind for metaphors as I do, this made me think of the atonement of our Savior, Jesus Christ.

He knows that no matter how much we have in savings, it wouldn't be enough to cover our debts... and he says, "This is a catastrophe."

He recognizes how sad it would be for us to not be able to return to live with him and our Father in Heaven.

So he says, "I'll pay it! The sinner only has to give themselves to me, and then I'll pay for their sins!"

I will give myself to the Lord, just like I'll pay my $4000, knowing that it's not really enough, but that it somehow is enough -- "somehow" seems like a random word, when really I know it's not random. It's infinite love. It's divine. It's part of God's great plan. His Plan of Happiness; his Plan of Salvation.

I'm so grateful! I need a tissue!