Ups and downs

It’s been one of those weeks. We have cel­e­brated a birth­day, an anniver­sary, the birth of a friend’s baby, preg­nancy announcements.

And we have  been sad­dened by the news of two mis­car­riages and the pass­ing of a dear man in our church.

Rejoic­ing and griev­ing intermingled.

It’s so hard for this finite woman to com­pre­hend an infi­nite God who is the author of life. And the num­berer of days.

Yet, with­out my lim­ited knowl­edge of Who He is, I would be a com­plete mess, wal­low­ing in sor­row with­out hope. How do peo­ple do that?

Why do peo­ple pre­fer to have a facade of auton­omy rather than grip the hand of God, cling­ing to His Gift?

And it’s just a facade, you know. For each breath we take, believer and unbe­liever alike, comes from the very gen­er­ous hand of God. And that last heart­beat that beats in our chest was timed to the nanosec­ond by this same Cre­ator of life. Ordained before the foun­da­tions of the earth. It is mind-boggling.

Today, we will mourn with our friends at the ser­vice of their hus­band and father. We will remem­ber that our days are a vapor. And a gift.

I pray that we will not waste this oppor­tu­nity to see our mor­tal­ity and thank God for His gift of life. And Life that is in Jesus Christ alone.

And we will cel­e­brate the babies. And birth­days, anniver­saries, and other land­marks of time that we pass with lit­tle thought of the swift­ness of the years.

Scrip­ture tells us that it is bet­ter to be in a house of mourn­ing than in a house of feast­ing. That seems so con­trary to the way we want to spend our days. The feast­ing is enjoy­able and we can see God’s rich mercy to us when we look for it.

But the house of mourn­ing brings real­ity to our door. We can’t move past it with­out con­sid­er­ing that we are mor­tal, and have a lim­ited num­ber of days before us. It can bring fear to the man who refuses to sub­mit to the God of the uni­verse. But it renews the hope of the future for the Chris­t­ian. And we praise God for His rich mercy that He gives us today. May we walk in peace in sor­row and in joy. May we see His hand guid­ing and pro­tect­ing us, bring­ing us safely Home in our appointed hour.

Rest in Jesus. For there is no rest elsewhere.