Where Have YOU Been?

I violated the Cardinal Rule of Web log posting: be present. Please forgive me for going dark.

The last post I wrote about our dear friend, Jay. From there we had Father’s Day and Vacation and our 17th Wedding Anniversary (can I get a WOO-HOO?) I could’ve posted about my incredble father, the great dad and husband John has been and how even the tame Hogwart’s Ride in Universal Orlando nearly made me vomit. Oh…so many ways to go there.

Sprinkled in-between those events were some really awful happenings: the discovery of a brain tumor one of my friend’s 4-year-old daughter (surgery is this Wednesday,) my newly-widowed friend, Aprile’s loss of her Father, and the diagnosis of cancer in two parents of other dear friends. It’s as if the tragedy fairy has been hopped up on Mountain Dew, wielding her two by four with a vengeance, happily head-smacking unsuspecting friends with life-altering circumstances. It’s been terrible.

Now today, two years removed from my own worst nightmare, I see from spectator’s perspective how faith in God and His ultimate resolution is the secret sustaining my bludgeoned friends. I see something larger than mere determination pulling them through the worst of times because humanly speaking they should not be prone at this point. What is there is more than optimism, good will or wishful thinking; it is acceptance of their portion of pain with a deep confidence that things will somehow work out.

As comfortable as we can make it, as beautiful as it can be and as perfect fleeting moments of our lives certainly are, I have crawled inside and worn this truth: this world is not my home. It does not mean that we stop living when hit by that two by four, no, I still have to live my life and make the most of my days, but at the end of the day, at the end of this life, no measure of what I have accrued, built or collected, (including a pain-free life) is important. “The best is indeed, Elizabeth Browning, yet to be.”