Yesterday, I was looking at the remaining coffee filters sitting in our kitchen drawer. I asked myself, “Where will I be when all of these are gone?” I did the same thing a few weeks ago when I got my recent oil change. Then again with our anticipated annual cleaning of the leaves from the trees in our yard. Perhaps this will now become something I will do for the remaining days of my life wondering if this is the last time I will do such a thing.
Of late, Jan and I have been talking about this issue. We remark when an unexpected and challenging change happens, “Today is a day filled with God’s grace and we receive your mercies for today.” Every day, not someday in the future, is where His grace is being displayed in our lives. Recognizing that reality today puts everything in its proper place.
We’ve even talked about the death of one of us. It’s impossible to imagine such an event. We pray about that moment knowing only the grace of God will be there when the time comes. Such events have a unique grace available to us only when those events finally do come.
Living in a day-by-day moment of God’s grace will be for us the same kind of assurance the Lord spoke to Moses, “I will be with you” (Exodus 3: 12). It’s true for coffee filters or whatever else happens in our future if we continue to remind ourselves today that His grace will always be there for us no matter what our future reveals.
This gave me peace this morning as I walk through this time of missing Bill and clinging to God.
Over the past 40 years, every ten years I have faced an unexpected and difficult tragedy ending in the death of a loved one. Jesus never leaves. His grace was always sufficient even in my sorrow. This is not the main event we are anticipating…the BEST is yet to come, even as the coffee filters run out or are left behind.
I just took in the movie After Death
So well produced and sensitive gathering of many peoples experiences.
Well worth going to view
Yes, I have been thinking along those same lines. That still small voice has been telling me to appreciate snowfalls, sunny days, old friends, good meals, etc…
This may be the last one you ever see, He whispers. Not as a threat but as a reminder, because we forget that life in this dirt world is dynamic and often changes in a heartbeat and that season of our life is over and a new one begins.
Good or bad, where we are and what we are experiencing is just a season. With this reminder come an attitude of gratitude, live in each moment of each day, in doing so the unimportant things that possess us seem to fall away, this too is a gift from our Father. I am assured by that still small voice that when it’s time to get serious He will let me know, until then I wag more and bark less.
Thank you boss, good word.