Page 10 of Mistletoe Dreams
"Exactly."
"I feel that way about my cancer. God allowed it. I'm not sure why, and I'm not sure if it's for me or someone else."
"Is that why you're not taking treatments?"
"I suppose I would take treatments if I really felt like God wanted me to, but I just didn't have a peace about it. And I was also scared to death to do it too." She laughed a little.
"So do you think that's why you didn't feel a peace about it?" Hannah had never been quite sure how she could tell whether it was God's will or her own will, her own desires, her own fear talking.
"I told God I would do whatever He wanted me to. And I just felt like the decisions that I made were the right ones. I suppose when I get to heaven, I'll know for sure. But sometimes I also think that God's fine with any decision that we make, you know? That He'll work it out for good, and as long as the decision isn't a moral one—like if I had to steal medicine in order to take the treatment, I would know that that was not the right decision to make, you know?"
Hannah laughed. "I know. That makes sense."
"Since it was just a matter of taking treatment, which wasmorally okay, or not taking treatment, which was also morally okay, I felt like there might not have been a specific way I had to decide. You know?"
"That makes sense."
And it really did. That there were some decisions that either way would be fine. Whether that was true or not, whether it worked or not, Hannah couldn't say for sure. But she couldn't think of anything in the Bible that said that was wrong. Although she definitely thought it was always wise to ask for God's guidance and to do what a person thought the Lord wanted them to.
She had to admit that had not been the way she had lived her life. She hadn't prayed at all about what job to take. She'd taken the one that would be the most prestigious. After all, wasn't that why she became a doctor?
She questioned that though. Because she definitely could have a ministry here, looking at Marjorie, who had no medical degree of course, but served the town in a way that would be irreplaceable. That's what she wanted to do: be needed and be a blessing wherever she was.
She and Marjorie talked some more and went over the treatment Terry had given her. Although Marjorie was just in to have some blood drawn and tested.
She was on her way shortly, and as Hannah went to the nursing station to check on her notes, Cassie, the receptionist, asked her if she would be able to squeeze in some stitches.
"Of course." It had been a while since she'd done stitches, but she certainly knew how.
"All right. I already have them in exam room two. Michelle, the nurse, has already done the preliminaries, and we're just waiting for either you or Terry to stitch him up."
"All right. Are the sutures in there?" she asked, confirming with Cassie where everything was, since this was her first time doing stitches at the clinic.
Once she was confident she would have everythingshe needed, she walked back down the hall to exam room two and went in the back door.
She almost turned around and walked back out. Ben stood inside, with what looked like a deputy.
The deputy had bloody gauze pressed to his hand.
"Good afternoon, gentlemen," she said, getting a hold of herself. She could be professional. She was a professional.
"Hey, Doc," the deputy said.
She glanced at the chart. His name was Gordon.
"It looks like you stuck your hand somewhere you shouldn't have, Gordon," Hannah said, making conversation and noticing that Ben said nothing.
"Just doing what the boss told me to," Gordon said, glancing at Ben.
Ben raised his brows. "I did not tell you to touch that glass."
"No, but you did tell me to look behind the board that was there to see if there was any graffiti sprayed on the back of the gazebo. How was I to know there was broken glass back there?"
"Sometimes our eyes tell us things if we use them," Ben said, a note of irony in his voice.
"That's true, Ben," Hannah said, thinking about how he hadn't recognized her. She had been mulling that over, maybe not thinking about it directly, but realizing that she and Ben had had enough interactions when they were children that... surely he would've recognized her? She hadn't changed that much. Marjorie had recognized her right away.
And even if he hadn't recognized her looks, surely when she said her name... anyway, she needed to let it go.
