Most of us are aware that life can change in a moment. We go about our lives, busy with our day-to-day, and then something happens that forever changes the course of what we knew. We can look back and mark it as the moment that changed everything.
Some moments are the good kind...
...you have been accepted {into X University}!
...we would like to extend the job offer.
...Will you marry me?
...You're {finally} pregnant!
They are life-altering, and when you look back at those sweet and sometimes long-awaited or long-prayed-for moments, you understand the gift that they are. That your life is as beautiful and amazing as it is because of those moments. You can't imagine your life being any other way without those moments. Those are the moments that make life full of joy and beauty and wonder, and you can't help but praise God for all of the gifts that He has bestowed on you.
Some moments are the hard kind, but still the ones meant to make us stronger people. Meant to grow our faith and forge our character...
...you will live with this disease for the rest of your life.
...we are going to have to let you go.
...your treatment has been denied.
They can be life-altering too, and you wonder what God is doing. Sometimes you pray, and the Lord is gracious to answer and remove the hardship. But sometimes, His answer is "wait," or even "no," and you are forced to wrestle with His sovereignty. You are reminded of His goodness despite the hardships you face, knowing that He is doing something in your heart to make you more like Him. It's not always easy to endure, and you may often feel weary, but you push on toward the goal of spiritual maturity and the abundant life with Christ. You ask for His power to praise His name through the difficulties, looking in hope to the glory that awaits.
And then. And then there are those moments that knock the breath out of you...
...you have lost the baby.
...they don't think he's going to make it.
...his heart has stopped.
These are the moments when your whole world stops, and you aren't quite sure if you will recover. Because you don't feel strong enough to survive it. You have faced hard things before, but this? This is different... These moments will replay over and over in your mind; they will even show up {uninvited} in your dreams. You will wish with all of your heart that you could just go back to the time before that moment that changed everything. You will plead with God why He had to allow that moment to even happen. Your soul will cry out with a deep ache and longing, and there will often not even be words, because what do you even say in those moments?
Today marks the one year anniversary of saying "
see you soon" to my brother. In a moment, everything changed for my family. In a moment, my parents lost their only son, and I became an only child. In a moment, I lost my first friend. As I have been anticipating this anniversary, the moments of that weekend have been replaying in my head again, almost to the intensity that they did in those early days. The texts from my mom. The phone call from my dad. The lonely moments on the plane. The suffocating moments in the hospital. The last moments in the OR. The moments planning the funeral.
So many moments that will forever be etched on my brain, the kind of moments that should never be. Because it's not supposed to be this way. A parent should never have to bury their child; it's not the natural order of things. I should have my brother by my side for the days ahead. He was too young. Death and darkness were never the way it was supposed to be.
I have said more than once in this grief journey that I do not understand how people grieve without Jesus; this is hard enough with Him. The gift that I have is that I don't have to grieve alone or without hope. In His loving kindness, God has gently reminded me of some other important moments that changed everything. Moments that make it possible to wake up and face these hard days...
...the light has come into the world.
...it is finished.
...he is not here, for he has risen!
Death and darkness were not the plan. But because of sin, death and darkness are the realities that we face in this world. But God, in His goodness, and from the beginning, set into motion a rescue plan to redeem all of the terrible things. In a moment, light shone in the darkness, Christ was born into a broken and weary world. In a moment, Christ gave His life to pay the penalty of our sin; our debt was paid in full, He died once for all. In a moment, he conquered death and walked out of the tomb, so that we might have life in Him. It's the life that Michael now enjoys. Our hope as followers of Jesus is that one day, all of the wrong things will be made right, and all of the dark things will be made light. And in another moment,
"Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed." - 1 Corinthians 15:51-52
I grieve, yes. And right now, it's heavy and complicated and exhausting. But I have hope that in a moment, I will be reunited with my brother {and with the babies we lost!} In a moment, all of my tears will be dried, all of my pain will be gone forever. And I, too, will be forever with our Savior, who has so graciously and gently walked beside me in every moment of my life...the good, the hard, and the ones that have knocked the breath out of me.
A precious moment in time
