Before the Beginning of Time

Sometimes it is hard to watch children grow.  It is not that I want them to stay little forever.  But each morning, as I hug them and watch them walk into the doors of their school to a life separate from me, I feel a little pang of letting go.   I can't run in and make sure they are happy.  I can't be there at lunch to make sure they have someone to talk to and tell them they are special.  Their lives are becoming increasingly independent as their horizons expand.  Sometimes life feels so fast and so fleeting.  I want to hold onto the days, but then they slip by and it is night again.  While life feels so fast for some, for others it can feel so long.  I spoke with a woman in our church who lost her nine year old to cancer and she said, "Life just feels so long.  The days stretch endlessly in front of me until I can be with my daughter again."

We miss people who are not in our daily lives anymore, and sometimes we even miss the ones who are as we let our children grow.  This morning I read this verse which makes me think of that day when we will sit by the river of life and really know people, love them fully and purely, and worship because of what has been planned since before the beginning of time.  May you know the love of the One who is before and outside of time and yet came into the limits of time that we might know Him.

...God, who has saved us and called us to a holy life- not because of anything we have done but because of His own purpose and grace.  This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. - 2 Timothy 1:9-10