Life is Precious

Life continues to feel frail and precious these days. I learned early Wednesday that a 41-year-old father of three young children had died in the middle of the night; I had met his wife and kids on several occasions through mutual friends. Even before this I was getting a bit jarred by all the recent deaths of younger celebrities--Jacko, Billy Mays, and especially the Steve McNair tragedy--but here was another dad exactly my age in the community where I live, with children bustling with the same energy and hope as my kids. Now they are growing up without their dad.

I've been praying extra tenaciously for my wife and children the past few days. Too often I assume or just take for granted that everything will stay normal and intact. More specifically, I do not focus on the gratitude for this precious window of time with a beautiful wife and two adorable children. Today it feels like the window is smaller than it used to be, that some of the best seasons have gone by...and if I knew then just how incredible those seasons were, I would not have complained so much about this or that or longed to get through certain things or had so many self-centered priorities.

So the big challenge is what I might do differently today, as I sense the window compressing, its glass and panes brittle but tenacious. A season of relational abundance is sprawled out all around me right now, and the highest response to its moments of goodness is to love well and to trust deeply in that which cannot be seen.