Chapters in My Book

Isn't it strange how everything that happens in our lives somehow connects, somehow relates? I suppose I never truly realized this before a couple of weeks ago, when my small group leader made a fleeting remark. She was expressing her amazement that something in the final chapter of our study book related to other chapters at the book's start. Then she laughingly chided herself, "Well of course it ties in. It's a chapter in the book." For some reason, this comment stood out to me. I suppose I never before saw my life in that light; that every circumstance is just another chapter in the same book I started with. And even though my eyes were opened that night, I still find it incredible that everything so fits together.

Yesterday morning, as I helped in children's church, I learned something about children. They don't understand the temporality of pain. When they fall, they cry. A bumped knee is a crisis and a scraped elbow is the end of the world. Then it's gone. The pain disappears and they forget anything happened. One little girl in particular, a little girl who struggles mentally, showed me this. I found her sobbing in the floor rubbing her arm, which had been scratched in play. I told her it would be alright, but she kept saying, "It hurts." I told her it wouldn't hurt for long, and she looked at me, tears covering her face and asked, "When will it heal?" I told her it would be better by tomorrow, that she wouldn't even remember she was hurt. She simply said, "Okay," and arose to continue in her play.
She wasn't sinning, you know. It wasn't wrong for her to cry for her pain. It wasn't wrong for her to ask when the healing would come. And it certainly wasn't wrong for her to stand up and move on.

On Saturday, my sister's softball team lost in the conference championship game. This means no National Tournament, and the end of their season together. Everyone mourned the loss. My heart ached for my sister as I watched her cry with her softball family. But as I walked away from the field, I saw a group of little girls playing in the mud, oblivious to the Great Tragedy. And suddenly, I saw life moving on.

Several years ago, I, with my highschool small group, went to visit our leader in the hospital. She had just had her baby girl. On our way home, we found out that a man in our community, a respected man, had commited suicide. A new life was born the same night an old one slipped away.

In my mind, all of these three circumstances fit together. They teach me of pain, of how to deal with it and how God is still gracious in its midst. I've wondered before, how much simpler it would be if the world would simply stop for our pain. If time would just stand still to let us ache and cry. But now I see the grandeur of it all. The world turning on. The immense hope of a new life ushering out the old. The grace of children to play while the old ones weep. 

I see these chapters, I read over them and my heart is stirred. Isn't my Author magnificent?

A few chapters of my life.