Life is Short

"Doubtstorms," Max Lucado calls them. "Turbulent days when the enemy is too big, the task too great, the future too bleak and the answers too few."



There are those times in life when there is nothing we can do to change the situation, nowhere we can go to get away from the loss, no one who can make things better. When life hurts we would like God to pick us up and let us soar above the heartache so that even though we know it is there we don't suffer the deep pain we know is coming.

Little do we know that the greater miracle in the midst of the our most grievous storm is when God gives us what we need to simply walk and not faint. At first, this hardly seems like a miracle at all. Because we really do believe that we could soar but then realize it is out of the question and there is no more running to be done. The only thing left is the helplessness of a reality that has forever changed the shape of life as we have known it and love it. Then comes the "keep on keepin' on" stage, when all we want is to go somewhere so we can coddle the gaping wound we have been left with and try to survive the unbearable pain.

When a storm comes along of sufficient force to wipe out our livelihood, our health, our most treasured relationship or perhaps our lifelong dreams, and we are left standing in the rubble of our shattered life, we are in many ways reduced to infancy. So much has been lost and so much changed that we must essentially start over again. We must begin to walk before we can think about running or soaring. Sometimes I wish people who haven't lost someone or experienced these feelings could just get a glimpse of what it is that we feel. Indeed we need help just to be able to stay on our own feet. When we can't carry ourselves, when the loss is one we cannot rise above or work through but no amount of prayer or effort can restore, our most immediate need is the grace to survive the intensity of emotional despair and the physical fatigue that accompanies it. It is here that our faith is being soarly tested at the same time it sustains us!

 

It is here we often cry out from the depths, "Where are you, God?" It is also here that God can do His deepest work in our lives because here we become aware that we have nowhere to go but to Him. We can pour out our screams of unfairness to God until we are empty and broken enough for Him to begin to teach us His absolute faithfulness. We can come to see God, ourselves, and our faith journey with new eyes as we simply hold out our hands and allow Him to lead us into a greater awareness of His wisdom.

I wrote some of this after my mom passed away and I read an incredible book (no longer available at bookstores called Riches Stored in Secret Places by Verdell Davis). It helped me get through the grief of losing my mom. To say that I struggled for months on end was an understatement. It rocked my world. But looking back on the last several years, God was ever needed, ever faithful, and ever present. I had longed for the pain to be gone, the lessons to be learned and the light to shine again. He gave me the grace to walk in the impossible places, taught me to trust and that I will again run and even soar.

Yesterday a friend passed away and my heart aches for the family. I do feel their pain and their struggle. O Lord, please comfort this family in their time of grief.

It is a gentle reminder that life is so short...gone in an instant. O, take that time today to tell someone how much they mean to you, how much you love them, how much they've had an impact on your life. You will never get the chance after they're gone!