There was only one thing with which Miss Abigail wrestled every year when the time came to recommit. There was something in the back of her mind that accused her of unfulfilled responsibility towards two people she loved – her parents. 

  As she visited them every summer in the Hutterite colony, she noticed her mother walk more slowly towards the community kitchen to get food. Clearly, her parents were growing frail and needed her help. She began asking herself repeatedly if it was true, if she really was abandoning them when they needed her care. 

  But what about her students? How was this supposed to work? She found herself asking God what she was supposed to do as she watched her mother slowly make her way to the community kitchen that day. 

  Just give them to Me, came the answer to her heart. 

  She felt encouraged. She would go back to Winnipeg for another school year, trusting God to take care of her parents. Though she felt lighter, she found herself telling her mother before she left for Winnipeg to call her if they ever needed her. 

  She didn’t know it would happen so soon. During the very first week of school, she received word that her father was sick. On Thursday her mother called and asked her to come. But there was a catch. 

  After a week without eating, her father was admitted to the hospital. This raised questions about whether she should travel there. She didn’t think she would be permitted to visit her father in the hospital because he had Covid-19. And who would teach her class of energetic first-graders? A few of them were dyslexic and needed personalized attention. This was not a job for just anyone. 

  As she tried to sort out what she should do, many times she was tempted to worry. She remembered the Lord had told her to trust, and though it was not easy, many a time she chose to cast her cares at His feet, giving her parents and all the surrounding circumstances to Him as He had said. 

  What happened next was surprising. The hospital asked for someone to come to the hospital to be with her father. During a time when close family members were often not permitted to visit patients, this felt like a miracle! 

  This was her answer. Miss Abigail knew she would go. After preparing for a substitute, she left for Saskatchewan. As she drove, her heart feasted on the colourful fancies of fall. She was amazed that she had the capacity to notice the colours. It must be her choice to trust that had enabled her to soul to enjoy the beauty. 

  When she arrived at the hospital, a nurse took her into a dark room. Here her father lay not only in darkness, but also stark silence, for the nurses had not realized he wore hearing aids. Miss Abigail spent the next twenty minutes trying to get him to recognize her. She touched him and shook his hand repeatedly, but he only opened his eyes briefly. Sometimes he nodded at her before closing his eyes again, but there was no recognition. 

  Then a nurse came with his lunch, and all of the sudden he realized there were two people in his room. He opened his eyes wide, searching Miss Abigail’s face. His face lit up with a smile as he said her name, reached out to grasp her hand, and held it tightly to his chest. The nurses said it was the first time they had seen him smile. 

  She spent the next weeks caring for him. Several of the other elderly people from the colony, who were also hospitalized, did not pull through. Though Abigail’s father seemed sicker than they had been, God saw fit to spare his life. He began to recover, and was eventually released from the hospital. Then she cared for him at his home as he slowly gained strength and learned to walk again.