sober-minded

Twenty-seven years ago this very day I gave birth to my first child, a boy; we named him Joseph Emmanuel. “He shall add” and “God with us.” I liked having that baby. I liked bringing him home from the hospital (holding him in my arms in the front seat!! No car seat!! Times were different!) and I liked all the feelings of falling in love that progressed as they always do. The day we brought him home was warm and sunny; spring came early, and it stayed.

Then, some three-and-a-half years ago, on a warm October day, we had to bury that son; we laid him in the cold ground, we said goodbye to him. The springtime of his coming had turned stormy and troubled over the years, and we lost him to those storms. Who would have ever known or thought such a thing there in the beginning, on February 28th? I didn’t, and I kept not knowing and not thinking such a thing through most of the years, even when the storms started, because I didn’t know how to understand the times and the seasons. I was supposed to have learned, being a Christian; but I didn’t.

Too many Christian parents have lost their children like this. Bewildered and shocked, we look back with regret on squandered time… too late we realize that days and weeks that stretched into months and years could have been filled up so differently, so differently. The opportunities we had are gone; there is no getting them back. We cast about for relief, finding it hard to believe it has ended like this, but no relief is to be found. “…it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment…” How true the words are! Why didn’t we tremble at them more?

Yet if there is no way back, there is a way forward. If there is no relief, there is new hope. “Today if you would hear His voice, do not harden your hearts…” You see, in the extravagant mercy of God in Christ Jesus, He has fixed another “today.” There remains a day to learn discernment and wisdom, to speak of these things to those who remain. Is there a generation of children and young people and families that need to hear the warnings and encouragement and exhortations to tremble and fill up their days and weeks and months differently than they’ve been doing? Then armed with the likes of Psalm 78 and Deuteronomy 6, let us go forward and tell them!

Since the day I learned that todays don’t last forever, four February 28ths have come around. The truth about ourselves–that true truth that comes when God opens our eyes to it by His word and His Spirit–could kill if it weren’t for His grace, upholding us, granting comfort and words of peace and hope. Ultimately, the truth comes to make us free. And in making us free, we are able to choose differently. We have this window of opportunity the Bible calls “Today” to make choices about. It’s another day of salvation. When this Today draws to its close, when the sun sets finally and all the fullness of everything has been gathered in, there will come the Day of days and the end of endings. But it’s not here yet; there is still time. The patience of God waits… while it is still called today.

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 22:02 and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.