Coming home and coming down from the emotional roller coaster of the last few days provides perspective. The pastor that my brother had to preside over his wife’s wake was amazing. I never attended a service so personal and inspiring as this one. He eulogized my sister-in-law’s life and presented her exactly as the person we all knew and loved.
During the eulogy he said something that certainly grabbed my attention. He said we don’t always understand why God does something that causes us such pain. He said maybe He wanted to get Sharon’s attention and maybe that of her family. I sat up straighter and listened closer because over the last nine months I’ve watched my brother and his wife draw closer and closer to God. They began to rely on Him more and more everyday. They began to develop a more personal relationship with Him. He got their attention.
Everyone’s birth is for a reason. Everyone’s death has meaning. The life we’re given in between is meant to be a testimony to God, dedicated to helping others. When we stray too far from what we were put on this Earth to do, God finds a way to grab us by the shirt collar and bring us back to Him. He gets our attention. Sometimes it’s through the passing of a loved one. Sometimes it through the loss of a job or a divorce or an addictive child.
Make no mistake – if God wants you, He’ll get your attention. He wants us totally dependent on Him, not on people or things of this Earth. I, for one, will continue to walk close to Him daily and depend on Him for every little thing from finding my cell phone charger to balancing my checkbook. God doesn’t want us to wait for times of extreme duress to come to Him, fallen and crying on our knees. He wants us to talk to Him daily, all day, for even the tiniest matters in our days.
And so, as another day goes by, learning from sister-in-law’s life and passing, I think it’s just wiser to go to God and not give Him a reason to come looking for me, and…I have written.
My prayer I say daily, without fail. Try it. It will change your life from whatever it is now, to take you places you’ve never imagined you’d go…
Point well taken my friend!