June 2013 – My One Desire

My husband, Terry, gave the communication meditation last Sunday. He did not tell me his topic beforehand, which made it that more impactful when I heard it.

He shared a time in his life when he was moving from northern to central Indiana. His 3-year-old and 2-month-old daughters stayed with his parents in Wisconsin, while he and his first wife moved all of their belongings. The morning after the move into the new house, there was a knock on the door. It was the police telling him to call his parents. They did not have the phone turned on yet, and this was before cell phones. The police could not tell him why, but he needed to call home.

His face pinched with pain, my husband, who is usually a rock when it comes to his emotions, continued on. His eldest brother answered the phone, which told my husband that something was terribly wrong. His first thought was that something had happened to his dad.

“What’s going on?” were the first words out of Terry’s mouth. He tried to keep it light, to soften the bad news he felt was coming.

His brother blurted out, “Melanie is dead.”

No one can prepare you for the pain of losing your 2-month-old child and feeling helpless hundreds of miles away. No one can explain away the feeling of loss for a child you will never see grow up. For years he has wondered why this had to happen, while also understanding that God has the big picture and a plan, even if he cannot understand it with his limited human intelligence.

On Sunday, after he had told his story, Terry said. “This is how God feels…”

I thought he was going to say God felt this way watching Jesus, His son, die on the cross for our sins; it was a communion meditation, after all. Except, Terry used the present tense of ‘feel.’

“…when He loses one of us,” he finished.

God grieves when His children choose to leave their faith in Him and put their faith in a fallen world. He grieves when his children hear the message, but turn away from its Truth. God loved us so much that he sent His son to die for us. With a love that complete comes the pain of losing the ones you love, and there is not one of His creation that He does not love.

A beautiful morning for a run, but I got started late, again. I started doing some chores, got ready for my run, and realized I hadn’t eaten. I didn’t want to bonk, so I ate something light and did a few more chores. The temperature was not as cool by the time I left the house, but the streets and Monon Trail were mostly shaded. I decided to run north on the Monon until I ran out of shade, which added another mile to my run, but it felt good. I enjoyed the birds and butterflies as I ran, praising God for His beautiful creation.

On the way back, I realized that my cool down walk included about a third mile of street that would be mostly in the sun, at this point. When I crossed the road and started down the street, a big, fluffy cloud covered the sun where I would have been in the direct sunlight. I smiled and said, “Thank you, Lord.” I had cloud cover for half of the street and a little shade from trees for the rest. Since I planned on blogging the event, I looked for the street sign to find the name, because I just call it the street to the Monon. I looked at the sign and it read ‘Grace.’ How perfect!