2018 is half way over and this is the first year the I have truly experienced multiple deaths in such a short amount of time of people that I knew personally. It started January first 2018 getting a phone call from my mom telling me through crackles in her voice that my grandpa, her father had passed away. I processed the words quickly but it wasn’t until a few minutes later in the phone call that the emotions began to set in. I had never experienced a moment where you feel like you are in an altered reality, all I could think was no but we just saw grandpa he’s fine, he’s alive. A week earlier December 25th 2017, I was pulling out of my grandparents driveway in Iowa and heading home to Kansas with my parents after most of my family had gather to celebrate Christmas as well as and my grandparents 60th wedding anniversary. Little did I know it would be the last time I would see my grandfather alive. I will forever be thankful that God as a family gave us that last weekend to celebrate together and honor the 60 years my grandparents had together. And so grateful that I have a family that sticks together in the good times and the bad, it was a journey in grief that we will continue to work through until we reach Heaven.
A few weeks after my grandpa’s funeral, there was a Facebook post asking for prayer for an old college friend of my dad’s health and family. They had children the same ages as my sisters and I, we became close friends when we were little. Now over the years we’d float in and out of communication but that friendship with all of us was still there. The post was to notify friends and family that my dad’s buddy (the father of the family) was diagnosed with cancer. The diagnosis did not look good and within a few weeks on February 16th, 2018 he entered heaven’s gates. This death hit me hard because I was watching a close friend, a girl my age experience a loss that would drastically change her life forever. And it just as easily could have been me.
Then this last week June 6th, 2018 I received a text message from a friend that a gentleman at the church I used to attend had passed away. He’d been having health issues but no one knew what the cause was or clearly how extensive the issues were. He was a man that if you were in his presence you were smiling, there was no way not to. He just had a care free way about his life that brought everyone joy. Sitting at his funeral and all the others I’ve listed above was sorrowful because each individual made an impact in my life, an impact I might not have noticed with them here but now has left a little void in the rest of my life. Thankfully I know they were all saved and I will see them again someday in Heaven.
I am constantly reminded of James 4:14 “Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.” A verse that I heard multiple times growing up and just said yeah I know that in a factual sort of way. But these last few months I have experienced and now know this on an emotional level. We don’t know what 5 minutes from now holds. So why? Why should I put my plans above Gods? Especially when God has made it clear time and time again that I have absolutely no control. I hope to live daily in the weight of the truth that Jesus Christ died for my sins and to know that His will is eternally better than anything I think my life should look like. Heartache will come with every step in life but my hope and source of happiness is in the unchangeable love of Christ. If there is something God is calling you to do, or the Holy Spirit is putting something on your heart. The moment is now. There is no time to wait. If He tells you to move. Move.
