Today James Michael turns twenty eight! Since May of last year, he graduated from Auburn University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, got married, trained and served as a deputy sheriff in West Virginia, moved twice, and joined the Air Force. Just typing this leaves me breathless.
But it’s true: life goes on.
Our surviving children have done a bang-up job of pushing through and moving forward even with the burden of grief weighing them down.
I don’t know how they do it.
I have managed a few minor projects but am still unable to think beyond today.
I struggle to carry grief and plan ahead.
When you realize that your world can change in an instant, it seems silly to mark things out on a calendar as if paper and ink controlled the universe.
So I celebrate the days as they come and cling to the promise that God has a plan and purpose for this pain. I place my heart in the hands of the One Who made it and trust that He will make it whole again.
I rest in the reassurance that death is not victorious and the grave is not eternal.
But let me tell you something wonderful, a mystery I’ll probably never fully understand. We’re not all going to die—but we are all going to be changed. You hear a blast to end all blasts from a trumpet, and in the time that you look up and blink your eyes—it’s over. On signal from that trumpet from heaven, the dead will be up and out of their graves, beyond the reach of death, never to die again. At the same moment and in the same way, we’ll all be changed. In the resurrection scheme of things, this has to happen: everything perishable taken off the shelves and replaced by the imperishable, this mortal replaced by the immortal. Then the saying will come true:
Death swallowed by triumphant Life!
Who got the last word, oh, Death?
Oh, Death, who’s afraid of you now?It was sin that made death so frightening and law-code guilt that gave sin its leverage, its destructive power. But now in a single victorious stroke of Life, all three—sin, guilt, death—are gone, the gift of our Master, Jesus Christ. Thank God!
I Corinthians 15: 51-57 (MSG)
thelifeididntchoose 