One More Day

Sitting on the floor, pieces of a shattered vase scattered all around. Once it sat upon the shelf with the others - so beautiful and so full of life. Others couldn't help but smile and feel the joy as they encountered this vase. But now all that seems to remain are pieces - pieces that can never be put back together again, at least not in this world, not in this situation. Yet, there was hope . . . reaching down to pick up a piece and turning it over in her hand. She sees something so priceless that she never would have seen it had it not crashed to floor . . . just like the day her world came crashing down around her. The day Jesus came to take her baby girl home.

"One more day, one more time, one more sunset, maybe I'll be satisfied. But then again I know just what it'd do ... leave me wishing still for one more day with you."

Words from a country song about a lost love I'm sure. But they seemed to fit my life saying goodbye to my oldest as he went off to college and I headed back here, some 5700 miles away. Where did the time go? And they seemed to fit as I can't stop thinking about this family who lost their 13 year old daughter in a tragic hiking accident here last week . . .

"These are the moments, I'll remember all my life"

The mother sat across the room from me . . . just three days before her world would be turned inside out. I couldn't seem to keep my eyes off her - I was distracted by her somehow, but didn't know why. I pray next time I'll remember to ask the Lord why He is pointing someone out to me.

Lord what are you trying to say to us? There has been so much sadness and grief in this place lately. A few weeks ago, two paddlers were lost at sea, now a boat is missing, carrying a crew of five. And my heart grieves for all these.

I remember my own feelings of grief as if were yesterday; not to the same depth, but the most grief I had known. When they couldn't find the heartbeat of our unborn child at 14 weeks; when we had to pull our oldest out just before his senior year and move him half way across the world - to an island - for his senior year. God what could you possibly be doing in all this?

And that become the most important question in all this - not Lord, would you please make sense of this for MY sake, but what are you trying to teach me, what would bring YOU glory, not what would bring ME glory. This is why: He is my Peace "whether He stills the storms or beckons me to walk on the water to Him." And it is is not Him that I doubt - it's me.

So this quote rings so true to my hearts' cry: "Far more than explanations, we crave the unshakable conviction that He is utterly supremely God." Do you crave that unshakable conviction?