I was working late yesterday, sitting at my desk, when my
Grandmother called. She told me that my aunt had passed away over the weekend.
I hung up the phone and sat there a while, wondering how I felt. I didn’t
really know my aunt too well – the last time I’d seen her was at my cousin’s
bridal shower. But I used to go to her house every Christmas Eve back in the
old days. You know, Before Missions. Back before God spun the roulette wheel of
my life and I became a bouncing black ball moving from mission house to airport
to dorm room to new school…
Maybe that’s why I get a sense of peace and stability when I
think of her. Because I remember those days as being more peaceful and stable.
Although I know that it really wasn’t. It’s just easier to look back and think
that.
But then, when I do sit quietly and look back, I can see
that I was never really bouncing randomly from number to number. It was a very
carefully controlled bounce. Landing in a classroom of English speakers in a
French public school for a year. Stopping in a dorm room with a best friend for
three months. Ending up a mile down the road from a friend I’d met in another
town who’ll walk with me for the rest of my life. God has had it all planned
out from the beginning of time. And I’m grateful for that.
In the sad, scary, or simply confusing moments, I’m grateful
for that.
My life events are not random. They are not out of control. They
do not depend on how hard someone spun the wheel. They rest in the Almighty’s hands.
I rest in the Almighty’s hands. I cling to that. And I think, that at one
point, my Aunt clung to that, too.
Please pray for my cousins…
