A new season - (Tap to view)

 

A little over 7 years ago I started putting verses on my photos daily during the week, in an effort to encourage my wife, who was going through Breast Cancer.  This past Sunday, she passed away after a long hard battle.  As I was thinking what to use for today's verse, I thought of this passage in Ecclesiastes.  I loved my wife, even more than I ever realized, and that becomes more and more obvious with every passing pain filled moment.  In Psalm 90:12, David asks God to teach us to number our days so that we can apply our hearts to wisdom.  My wife had a total of 18840 days, of which I had the privilege of sharing 11,819.  I'm grateful for each and every one of them, but at the same time, I selfishly wish there were more. A tiny bit less selfishly, I also wish that I had spent less time working, or on my device, and otherwise distracted in her presence, and also more time focusing on God.  I wish I had listened a little more intently.  I'm not writing this to depress you, but to remind you that for all of us, there is a day coming.   Accept Jesus Christ as your savior. if you haven't yet.   Then, live each day with Him in mind.  11,819 days went by at an incredibly blinding pace.  

Seasons change.  One day it will be my turn.  I don’t like change.  I don’t like death.  I’m struggling with the timing, with the target, and with seeing this as ‘beautiful!’  But, the Bible teaches that as my wife’s favorite verse states, “All things work together for Good, to them who love him.”  I know that she loved the Lord, and I know this worked out for her good.   I struggle with how this was good for anyone else?  Yet we walk by faith and I have to trust Him.  I also see the beauty of her life and how this event brought that into sharp focus and brought glory to God, as it should.  As someone much more eloquently has said, it's not the start or the end date that matters, it's the "dash."  I sure loved my wife's dash and my part in it.  That was because when she was 12 years old, she gave her life to Christ after confessing her sin, and she spent her life trying to learn and understand God’s will and then doing it.

Thank you JESUS, for the blood applied!

Ecclesiastes 3:1-11

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die;

a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal;

a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh;

a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together;

a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose;

a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew;

a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate;

a time of war, and a time of peace.

What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?

I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it. He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.