Gut Punch

    I feel like I have been punched in the gut. Sometimes you are given a bit of news that just makes you ache from the inside out. This morning in our company devotions it was announced that one of our co-workers husband’s had committed suicide. His wife is one of those girls that you try hard not to compare yourself to. She is in a word, “stunning” and in a few more words, “absolutely beautiful”. I don’t know her personally other than we used to work at the same company but she was always someone I admired from a distance and imagined at a glance at her, that her life must be perfect. The reality is more like everyone’s life on this earth. Everyone’s life is fraught with obstacles and pain. When someone’s life appears perfect to you, hang around them for a day, walk a mile in their shoes and you may find a burden or two they are carrying you might be able to help with. We can all feel her pain and can’t fathom what she must be going through right now. I don’t think she had been married more than two years.  She wrote a letter to friends and family that was read during company devotions. She stated that her husband struggled off and on with mental illness and sometimes it was barely there and other times it overwhelmed his whole life. She believes that he is resting in the arms of Jesus now and free from the pain of his illness.

     I just ache for her and her family. It is so very sad. I immediately started thinking about what I would do if I lost Wubs. Just pondering the idea brings tears to my eyes. It was all I could do to hold it together and not cry in front of the entire company this morning. I know I need to hold my husband loosely and keep surrendering him to the Lord and I know that God would never forsake me should I ever have to walk through what this woman is walking through but my life was touched by tragedy this morning and I’m still processing the ache. I’m sincerely praying that she would find comfort for unimaginable pain.

     Our life is but a breath and so fragile and often we live like we have a thousand tomorrow’s.  The reality is the fragile flame of our life could be snuffed out at any moment. I want to treasure every moment and live life as if it was a gift.

      I listened to another pod-cast today that talked about the word “beauty” throughout scripture. By the end of the message he was describing how each of us were given a piece of God’s heart and how we needed to find what was beauty for us. He used a word picture of a snow-capped mountain and described how one person might want to photograph it, another might want to ski down it, another might want to write about it etc… Then he asked, “What is beauty to you?”  “That is unique to you, as unique as your fingerprint.” He then led the congregation in a prayer that those who had never been free to discover what beauty was to them would have the freedom to be able to now. He then made the statement that so often the church focuses on how the world will be when Jesus comes back and forgets that he is coming back for a spotless beautiful bride. How we are to be that bride. Full of beauty and the beauty that comes out of us should be drawing the world to God. It just gave me a second wind to pursue the things I am passionate about. I am starting a goal to purchase recording equipment. I know it will cost but it just makes me happy. I love to sit and play and sing and if in any small way it could bring glory to God, I want to pursue it…even though I am very aware I am not the most skilled musician out there…

     Totally off the subject but another thing that happened today…I got two new computer monitors at work.

They. Are. HUGE.

I feel like the captain of the star ship “enterprise”.

     It is nice to have the extra room on the screen though. Now I can see two pages of a Finale score instead of only one. That is helpful.