Well, it’s been quite an educational experience as I have been navigating waters through hospital, rehab, and insurance with Mom. We all know that the system is in dire straits, and we know there are those that would have computers and machines replace humans in every aspect of the workforce, but did you know managed care payment is all determined by algorythm? Thankfully there are also Quality Improvement Organizations that make provision for independent review of the computer-generated decisions. If you aren’t familiar with what I am talking about, well, be thankful.

Managed care came along because of waste and fraud. QIO came along because managed care can get overzealous and unreasonably stingey with the benefits you pay for, and refuse to cover your individual need based on aggregated data of a pool of patients of similar profile. So much for personalized medical care!

But the Lord has seen fit to let Mom prevail via the QIO appeals 3 times now, thank you for prayers! She still has weeks to go, however, so the insurance will continue to issue notices of nonpayment and we will keep appealing. Any seniors out there who are thinking of switching original medicare for Humana, they are great if you are healthy, but if you have a major medical need, big surgery, stroke, major injury, you will find out they don’t pay without a major fight. Lawyers are telling me though that “since covid” it’s getting that way with all insurances. And just like the Bible says, the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Top execs make out like bandits, while many have been pushed out of their jobs over the “snakebite edict”.

The Supreme court is going to hear the case of a high school football coach who was fired six years ago for praying on the field. That’s looking promising, as is the overturn of Roe v Wade! We aren’t going to turn back the judgment America is under, but as long as there are people fighting the evil, we may manage some damage control as salt and light if we wear the armor and continue to stand.  I don’t know about ya’ll, but I just can’t look too far down the road. I developed that habit of just taking each day as it comes. I can honestly say I feel for people who haven’t had to struggle. Hard times are less hard on those who have been through them before. It’s a victory when you have learned to be content both “in plenty and in want”, as the Apostle Paul put it. Truly impoverished people are some of the most generous people you will ever meet, because they know what it is like to go without, and when they have something, they are thankful, and generally quick to share, happy to alleviate someone else’s hunger or other suffering.

Even as our world becomes a more evil place, kindness that takes place seems that much kinder. Grace is rare, but more powerful in this cold climate of callousness. I have to admit, I’m not good at grace.  I have had it so easy compared to what people have faced down through history, and in parts of the world currently.  So even though I have struggled, I wouldn’t want to trade my trials for anybody else’s. I’m not wise enough to. God allows and God prohibits according to His wisdom. I’m fine with being a mere creature. I don’t want God’s job. It is a comfort that He is bigger, wiser, all-powerful, and that we make our plans and yet He directs our steps, that we can hit a wall that seems inpenetrable, but He makes a way over, under, around or through it. God the Father sets the boundaries, and if we will abide by them, He will protect us. Do young people understand this anymore? Now that so few parents actually set boundaries? Humanity has strayed so far from God, that like the children of Israel wandering in the wilderness, there is a whole generation that are ignorant of His ways, and don’t know Him and yet many have adopted or absorbed a hatred toward God based on the misrepresentations of Him provided by their elders. They don’t even realize the absurdity of “judging” the Creator.

Why do the heathen rage and the peoples of the earth imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying,  Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.

He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh. The Lord shall have them in derision. Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.

Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.

Be wise now therefore, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the LORD with fear, and rejoice with trembling.

Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him. –Psalm 2

I ran across a thought provoking essay about this passage by James Nickel in Chalcedon Magazine online.

It’s a good read. It points us back to ourselves, the church, and our responsibility in the culture. It was written nearly a decade and a half ago, so it was prescient. God’s Word and His spiritual principles remain true in all times. Nothing new, just new generations learning, or failing to learn, the same old lessons the hard way.