13 January 2009

Life is What Happens...

...when you are making other plans.

In an instant, a day, your life is turned upside down. Everything that was true about the future, isn't. Everything you have been moving toward disappears. A person you don't know makes a decision, and people that don't care shore it up, because to do otherwise would negate all the premises that built the whole thing, and the whole must be preserved, even at the expense of the truth, and your future.

And yet.

You have your health. Your children. Your family. You find out, truly, who your friends are. Life moves forward, and you with it. And you realize this has happened before, more than once. And that, given that we have free will, this will likely happen again, and again, this side of Heaven.

And also, there is Grace. That flip side to free will. I have never, really, believed in the 'God has a plan for you' line, at least not in the way people mean it. I will not justify the poorly thought, the mistake, the selfish, or the pure evil with 'God has a plan.' I believe that God has a PLAN, that PLAN is his Children in Heaven. That is where the Grace comes in. Not only are we saved from our sin, and our free will, by Grace alone. That Grace includes the strength to move forward, the forgiveness when we fail, the Love of a Father.

A week ago the future was ours, the choices all good. Now there may not be any choices. There is a path, which from here looks more like a long, dark tunnel with little hope of light at the end for a very, very long time. But we will walk it, together, hand in hand. We will carry our children, take strength from our friends and family, and believe with all our heart that God is with us.

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