The Best Laid Plans . . . Maybe

No matter how well I plan, nothing goes the way it should these days. Do you know that feeling?

I wish I could say this was a temporary situation, but I’m looking at over a year of constant barriers and interruptions to my workday. The sad thing is most of them are not due to my mistakes.

I should have time to get stuff done, but other people and organizations continue to construct roadblocks.

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” Matthew 6:34

I’ve focused this blog on grandparenting over the last few years since two of my grandchildren live with us. Children who end up in foster care or the care of a relative often bring more than baggage with them. In our case, we have several diagnoses: ADHD, OCD, Anxiety, Autism.

I’ve hit most of these in stride, but a lot of setbacks come from the government and pharmaceutical issues. ADHD meds are controlled substances. In our state, you HAVE to visit the prescribing doctor every 3 months. Since they have different doctors due to their specific needs, that’s eight times a year I have to fit one of these appointments into my schedule.

After the appointment, the doctor submits 3 separate prescriptions for the same medication to the pharmacy. These can NOT be listed as refills. Each one has a “do not fill before” date on it. Not satisfied with that restriction, insurance will not let them fill the prescription until 30 days after you picked up the last prescription. Since the scripts are not refills, you have to call the pharmacy and speak to the pharmacist in order to fill it. Call a day too early, and the pharmacy tells you to call back the next day. That’s enough of a pain, right?

But oh no, I’m not done.

My granddaughter’s prescription is often on back order. Why? Because in December it became available in generic form. Great, right? Nope. No one can get the generic form. It’s back ordered, too. Since there’s a generic available, the drug company no longer offers a discount coupon. For the same reason, insurance doesn’t want to pay for the brand. It’s not cheap.

If they’re out of stock, I can call other pharmacies to see if they have either form, but these prescriptions can NOT be transferred to another store, even in the same company. If I find it, I have to call the doctor who has to cancel the existing prescription with the current pharmacy and submit a new prescription to the new pharmacy.

My grandson’s prescription is not available in generic and it’s not on our insurance formularies. He is intolerant to the less expensive alternatives, and it took us forever to find this one. We can’t switch. For the last 3 years, once a year, his secondary insurance required a physician’s authorization. With authorization, they cover the prescription. In November, I proactively asked the doctor to do the authorization. The insurance company said they didn’t need it. This month, they do. He qualifies based on their criteria, but they’re refusing to accept the authorization. It’s not cheap if they don’t. After multiple attempts to get it approved, I gave up the other day and paid the higher price. That hurt.

These aren’t one call and done situations. They take a LOT of time to navigate when everything works. When something does go wrong, they take days. Time I need to use elsewhere.

My husband and I are nearing retirement age. We can’t afford to have our costs go up because the kids’ insurance wants to give us a hard time. I can’t afford the extra time from my work that I devote to these problems.

I wish I could say these are the only issues setting me back, but I could go on and on. I’m continually having to spend time on a problem not of my own making rather than do the work I’d planned to do that day. It’s getting ridiculous.

In the verse from Matthew listed above, it says not to be anxious. This is hard. I have a To Do list. Up until last year, I had minor setbacks but nothing major setting me back. Now? I’m lucky if I cross one thing off my list each day. In fact, I almost didn’t take the time to write this post because of the time factor. I decided to anyway because I’m fairly sure I’m not the only frustrated parent, grandparent, or caregiver out there.

I do trust God to take care of things, but it’s hard when this world requires so much from me. I’m not a worrier, thank goodness, but I am a planner. I’ve seen my grands without these prescriptions. They don’t do well.

I guess I’m like the father in the Mark who tells Jesus, “Lord I believe. Help my unbelief.”

Messy Lives=Abundant Harvests?

During church this past Sunday, this verse hit me. Not for the reason you might expect, though.

Our lives have been very messy. Not the messy most people deal with. I mean MESSY! The last month has been a rollercoaster of overwhelming circumstances–most of it not good. But do you see what this proverb shows us? Keeping things clean and neat and quiet does NOT lead to abundance. No! The manger, if used, is a smelly place that constantly needs attention to keep it from getting out of hand. But if you leave it empty, you have no oxen. If you have no oxen, you have no one to pull the plow. If the plow can’t work in the fields, you have no harvest.

I’m not saying I’m going to jump for joy at the mess of our lives, but at least I can step back and say this mess can lead to something good.

New Year: Sacrifices and Blessings

It’s a new year. Last year, we made a big deal about good riddance to 2020. This year, I got the sense that most people held back on their hopeful proclamations. Although 2021 wasn’t as harsh as 2020, it still didn’t offer the relief many hoped for.

I get the desire to mark the beginning of a new year as a season of hope, but I’ve always felt that was silly. Dates have little to do with my day-to-day life. I mark the new year just because it falls so soon after Christmas.

If I look at things based on the calendar year, I can say 2020 and 2021 offered a lot of blessings for me. Yes, the world dealt with, and continues to deal with, Covid. I know many who have suffered great losses during this time. Personally, things have not gone well with my daughter whose children I’m raising. My husband began to deal with health issues that put a monkey wrench in some of our Christmas plans. I could dwell on the negative aspects of those two years without anyone questioning me.

Yet, it wasn’t all horrible. Wonderful things did happen. I published three books over those two years and won Best Fantasy Novel for the first one. I attended conferences as an invited guest instead of an attendee. I made lots of new friends. My daughter became engaged in a very theatrical way that suits her personality. The move from in-person corporate training workshops to virtual ones healed my feet of the agonizing pain of plantar fasciitis.

So, I could dwell on the negative, but I have plenty of positives to focus on. I’d rather view the passage of time in that light instead.

In the Bible, God gave the Israelites a calendar to go by. It contained festivals and rites and times of sacrifice. He used these events to remind them of what God did and continued to do for them.

In Exodus 23: 14-19, God instructs the Israelites about three festivals:  The Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Harvest, and the Festival of Ingathering.

“Three times a year you are to celebrate a festival to me. “Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread; for seven days eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you. Do this at the appointed time in the month of Aviv, for in that month you came out of Egypt. “No one is to appear before me empty-handed.  Celebrate the Festival of Harvest with the first fruits of the crops you sow in your field. Celebrate the Festival of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in your crops from the field. Three times a year all the men are to appear before the Sovereign Lord. Do not offer the blood of a sacrifice to me along with anything containing yeast. The fat of my festival offerings must not be kept until morning. 

These festivals reminded them of the blessings God provided. Two of them are to celebrate, not to look back. The Festival of Unleavened Bread does look back, but it looks back toward a joyful time of release from bondage.

God repeats this instruction in Exodus 34, almost to the word. We could spend a lot of time on why it’s repeated, but I’ll only note that Exodus 23 occurs before the golden calf and Exodus 24 after.

In Leviticus, God gives instruction to Moses on sacrificial offering. The directions provide clear, albeit difficult, steps to follow. In some way, I can see the Israelites taking comfort in these rituals. In Leviticus 16, he gives specific directions about the Day of Atonement, ending the direction with this summary:

“This is to be a lasting ordinance for you: On the tenth day of the seventh month you must deny yourselves and not do any work-whether native-born or a foreigner residing among you- because on this day atonement will be made for you, to cleanse you. Then, before the Lord, you will be clean from all your sins. Leviticus 16:29-30

Several chapters later in Leviticus, God provides instruction of feasts, including the Passover.

Why am I noting this? God set up a calendar for His people. He marked it with special events and processes that reminded them of their salvation in God. These events reminded them of His blessings and of their shortcomings, but this calendar gave them hope. It gave them a way to move forward beyond sin.

It may feel like we don’t have the same experience in today’s world. We don’t offer sacrifices in the way the Israelites were commanded to do. Jesus’ sacrifice changed how we look at forgiveness of sin. Even though we don’t hold these feasts, every Sunday Christians come together to worship Him and remember the ultimate sacrifice through the Lord’s Supper. Maybe celebrating a new year as a season for looking forward with hope is not far from what God planned for us, after all.

So, I’m rethinking my attitude of not looking at January 1 as a day to mark with anticipation for what’s to come. This year, I’m thankful for blessings in the past and hoping for blessings in the coming year. How about you?