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My third baby girl turns five on Monday.
She was a New Year’s baby, the first of the year in our county. In my own opinion, it would be difficult to find a better way to bring joy and hope to a new year than with a perfect baby.
She passed her Papa on her way to us.
My dear friend, Martha Cook, said it well: And so your Papa stood at Heaven’s Gate. He saw as she passed by. He blew a kiss. “Samantha,” he said, “God is sending you to the best of families.” Then he turned and entered into the arms of the God he served. Well done. Well done.
It is a truth of this world that joy is wrapped up with sorrow. You cannot have one without the other.
It is the way of this world and it is the way of our God. He loves us, knowing that the joy of His love will be enveloped in sorrow. He loves us while He bears our grief and our sorrow.
If God Himself bears both joy and sorrow, how can we expect anything different?
Yet we do. We expect joy without sorrow, love without grief. When the grief and sorrow come, we shake our fists at this God and ask why?
And we should ask why, but a why of a different kind. Why, God? Why would You choose to love us when we continually turn our faces from You? Why would You choose to take our grief and sorrow upon Yourself? Why did You come to our rescue instead of leaving us to the fate we brought on ourselves?
We will not, in this life, have joy without sorrow. We can either try to live this life with God or without Him. With Him, the joys are brighter and the sorrows are lighter.
So breathe in and breathe out.
We receive what You give; We give thanks for what You give.
Above all, we give thanks for You.
edited from the archives
Art credits: Gethsemane by Carl Bloch; Three Crosses by Rembrandt; Going to Emmaus by Robert Zund; Christ and Samaritan Woman by Henryk Siemiradzki