It was seven years ago last week that Samantha’s heart failed, and God miraculously saved her life. Seven years ago we were about to go to bed, thinking we were just tired at the end of a long day. Little did we know we would wake up and experience our first feeling of what true panic felt like. What it felt like to plead with God and then hear a heartbeat. What it felt like to feel relief when we really shouldn’t have felt relief. It was the night before life crashed and was put back together, and yet we went to bed just like tonight, tired at the end of a long, full day.
This feels eerily similar with the unknown of what lies ahead. It seems big when I say it out loud, and it makes my head hurt if I try to force myself into the reality of what is happening. And yet, I hear the gentle whisper of, “You get to experience this.”
We get to experience the desperation of pure fear. We get to experience the resetting of priorities. We get to experience what it feels like to have to rely on friends. We get to experience trusting our God more than we trust ourselves. We get to experience the closeness of God in the blue jays as they flutter out of the trees. We get to feel the sturdiness in the feet of the deer as they stand in the yard. We get to be held close when we are scared and feel deep sorrow.
But we also know this is not all there is.
So at the tip of the cliff, I’ll say this life is short and eternity is long, and I’m determined not to steal the pen. We get to experience this. So, as we wait for a meeting with a significant consequence, we will choose to trust good or bad. Because we know no matter what, God has got this, and He has got us. We will choose to trust Him in the middle because our hearts are steady and set on forever, and we are determined not to steal the pen.
HLLF,
