It's a God Thing (Electronic book text)

A PORTRAIT
1. seizing an opportunity
Worry and deep concern for a loved one does not demonstrate a lack of faith in God. They are actually the very emotions that can serve to draw us to Him at critical hours of need. Have you ever been worried sick you were about to lose someone close? If so, you know, as Phil Callaway's story demonstrates, that when you're at the end of answers, love--and faith--sometimes find a way.
"Daddy, is Mama going to die?"
Five-year-old Stephen asked the question that Phil Callaway for years had dismissed far too casually. The woman he loved deeply had warned him of the trouble that could lie ahead.
When Phil and Ramona were in the "serious dating mode," they talked about marriage and kids and where they were going to live and what they wanted to do with their lives. At one point, Ramona had stood and paced the floor.
"What's wrong?" Phil asked.
"There's something you should know," Ramona replied anxiously. "I may have a rare disease called Huntington's. My dad had it, and I've been told that I have a fifty-fifty chance of getting it. Huntington's causes mental and physical deterioration and seizures, and if you get it, you usually die young. I just thought before we get too much further along . . ."
"I'd like to marry you someday, Ramona. I love you."
Phil never gave Huntington's disease much more thought. They were young. Invincible. And fertile. Three children were born in thirty-six months, which caused Phil to quip one day:
"Ramona, sure, we have three kids, but do you know why we're far more satisfied than the guy who has three million dollars?"
"No, why?"
"Well, the guy with three million wants more "
Before long, however, life wasn't so funny. Ramona began waking up and pacing the floor in the middle of the night.
"What's wrong?" Phil asked through half-open eyes.
"I'm fine. I just can't sleep."
By that time, three of Ramona's six siblings had been diagnosed with Huntington's, and she was convinced she was next. The symptoms were there: lack of sleep, irritability, occasional clumsiness, even a craving for sweets.
A few weeks later Phil, the editor of Servant magazine in Alberta, Canada, took a phone call at his desk.
"Hello?"
Silence for five seconds.
"Hello?"
"H-h-h-elp me, please help me," Ramona cried. "I don't know what's happening."
Phil drove home in record time and burst through the door. He found his preschool children sitting on the kitchen floor, pouring cereal into bowls. "Is Mama going to die?" asked Stephen, the oldest.
Ramona lay on the living room sofa, an ugly gash on her left leg--the result of her sudden fall against a wooden bed frame--dripping blood on the carpet.
Staring with vacant eyes, she asked, "What day is it? Monday."
It's Friday, Phil thought.
"She's making funny noises," Stephen said. "She thinks I'm her dad."
Phil gathered the three children and held them close. "Maybe we should tell Jesus," said Rachael, who was three. "Maybe He can do something."
Squeezing them tightly, Phil p