We must choose

One week ago we were sitting in a church filled with many people, remembering those we have grown to love and call our friends.
It’s hard to understand even after just a few weeks have passed.
Tara’s brother and sister talked about their sister.
It was good for them to share from their hearts and it was good for us as people listening, to hear ‘who she was as a sister’ not just the wife of David.
Her brother said ‘for her to come to a small town, and then to meet a wonderful family’ was God’s greater purpose.
He said ‘perhaps, in God’s bigger picture’, it was not an accident.
Because she had lost her own mother she would understand the pain of that kind of loss.
When she moved into a small county town to go to a ‘Christian college’ and do her psychology work with a family with young people who ‘lost their mother.’
Perhaps God was orchestrating another ‘purpose’ behind the scenes.
What a perfect place for her to settle in and learn to care for and eventually love this ‘special family.’
She would be someone who could truly say, “I understand.”
Because she did.
The love grew between herself and the family and mostly between herself and David.
It was a healthy kind of love that took it’s time.
In the service the time came for the four grown children to share about David and Tara.
Each one playing a part and a role in saying good bye to a wonderful dad and mom.
I am sure they are still filled with questions as to why it had to happen.
Why and how and what took place that evening on a country road.
The investigation still continues.
It seems to be just a tragic circumstance and I am hoping it won’t go any further.
Then yesterday in our State another ‘hard to believe’ series of shootings took place.
Ten people passed away and many were wounded by a senseless act of evil.
Those people didn’t get up and go to work and go to school thinking that ‘today is my last day to live’.
Just like Dave and Tara who were riding down a country road for a casual time outside.
They didn’t know or have any idea it would be the last ride, they would ever take together.
It is proving to me more and more as I get older, that we cannot let a day go by without telling our loved ones how we care for them, how important they are and what purpose they have in our lives.
We must not waste a moment.
Many people will begin this fall season with loss.
They will have the holidays to look towards, with memories of loved ones in their heart and mind.
Tears will come and so will anger, sadness with sit with them as they struggle to remember.
Sorrow is for a lifetime. Yes it softens. The intensity shifts to memories instead of intense tears.
There are many things in this life we will never understand, but if we believe in a God who has a higher purpose, then we can hold onto and cling to the hope that only He gives us.
That should we die early and should we leave way before we wish to, there is a place of comfort and a place of peace for us to reside in forever in a new heavenly home.
Loss is hard. No matter if it is a car wreck, shooting or physical ailment.
I think the lesson for all of us, is to choose, how we will live and how we will love.
And I will even add, how we will learn to say good bye.
Because someday we will have to even when we have no answers.