We invited a couple over to our house last weekend. New to Nashville (from California), they were interested in our home group which won’t start for another few weeks. Having felt their pain during our relocation two years ago, we invited them over for a play date and a trip to the pool. Having children three years and six months old, they were anxious to have adult conversations with people other than their spouse. It went well until we went to leave to the pool. The radar showed that we had about 15 minutes until the heavens opened up, and it was right. So no pool. It was a small disappointment and it only added to the other metaphorical rain that has been falling in our lives.
My best friend had open heart surgery and a difficult recovery. A neighbor had open heart surgery in July. Both are essentially my age. My dad ends up in the hospital for two nights with a bad infection after a dermatology procedure. My best friend, home for a week from the hospital, has his dear dog Brownie pass away.
Hard rain.
I’ll admit I’ve lived a blessed life with little exposure to pain and death. I was well into my 30s before anyone in my family passed away. My wedding to funeral ratio is incredible, and I’d have to lose almost everyone close to me for it to be “normal,” whatever that is.
The rain hasn’t helped my current life malaise either. These situations make me consider my own mortality, the shortness of life, the sweetness of ordinary moments, and the irony of youth being wasted on the young. In short, everything that most people go through as they age. My issue is that it has happened way more abruptly than I ever imagined.
I know the sun will come out again after the rain (like it did last weekend, but too late for the pool). John Denver will be playing Sunshine On My Shoulders. My wife and I will capture a firefly of delight in our marriage. God will throw the laugh of my child into the circle of life.
It’s just that I’m hating rain more than I usually do.
Categories: Deep Thoughts
A Deliberate Life 
See? I told you you could write. It’s not just me.
We all must endure the “storms of life”. Ours has been one torrential downpour after another for the past three years as we lost my father in law, then a good friend in her late 30’s died of brain cancer and I tried to fill in the gap for her taking care of her youngest son who was only 10. BJ had his stroke a year and a half ago, my mother-in-law passed in Feb., my grandma had a serious hospitalization shortly after and now has to live in a nursing home, and finally me being diagnosed with a heart condition and undergoing treatment for it. I’m getting tired just thinking of it, so you both have been so blessed that you haven’t had to deal with such heaviness. But through it all, God has been faithful and has taken care of us. BJ miraculously didn’t have any permanent damage from his stroke and it made him quit smoking. My heart problem can be fixed and my first catheter ablation went well. I think being faced with our own mortality makes us more conscious of our decisions and how we want to spend what time we have here on earth. A friend from church just lost her husband of 20 years last weekend to a massive heart attack. We are attending his funeral this Saturday, letting her know we will pray for her and come along beside her as she tries to parent their two teenage children, one of whom is Hannah’s age and just started high school with her yesterday. We were never promised our lives would be easy on this earth, on the contrary, we are commanded to “Deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him.” God doesn’t always give us what we want, but He always gives us what we need. I don’t understand why it’s often the “good” that die young, but I continue to trust and believe that His grace is sufficient. If nothing else, it helps us rely on His strength, not our own, to make it through each day.
Dear Paul, Your blog is a book in the making. Becoming a published author may not be on your to-do list, but it should be. Not only can you engineer & manage, ..you can “WRITE” (caps lock intended). I am loving (bad grammar intended) your blog & writing style. Thanks for sharing your musings. Hope to catch up with you in person again one day for some reminicin’ & so I can meet the lucky women (big & small) in your life. Take care, Kathryn