Eternal Perspective

Still trying to wrap my mind around the incredible devastation that  families (just like mine) are facing today in Oklahoma.  Thinking about whole classrooms of children swept away in the storm.  It makes me physically hurt.  I cautiously ask God, "Why?"

Truth is...His ways are higher.  And there is so much that He allows to pass through this temporary life that just doesn't make sense... to me.

But it does make sense to Him... and sometimes I just have to rest in that. 

Such tragedies wake me up to the reality of His word... Life is but a breath.  "Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away."  (James 4:14)

And how am I truly living it?   

I have been pondering over some words that Ann Voskamp offered last week:

Give away the life of polished floors and gleamy sinks, of big hair and bigger bank accounts, and let love get in and mess with you and loosen you up and make you laugh and cry and really give and really hurt because is the only way to really live. Don’t waste a minute of your life on anything less than love.

Don’t waste a minute of your life on anything less than eternity.  And that’s. what. love. is.

I once heard the story of a preacher man with a PhD — whose mother died when he was two. When he was two and they were 5 kids in poor Kansas and she had grabbed hold of her husband’s hand and whispered her 5 last words: Always keep eternity before them. 

Always keep eternity before them. 

Think of eternity — and live backwards from that. 

Praying for families in Oklahoma.

(Pictures courtesy of my girls while studying for final exams.)