Unraveled
"Mrs. Wilkins, I'm sorry to tell you that your husband is deceased."
Time froze that morning and I along with it. There is no string of words to assemble that can convey that instant when life forever changed.
My husband is dead? Aaron is dead?
The man who daydreamed with me atop a Mexican pyramid about love and babies, the one who raised his arms in worship at church, the guy who selflessly served others. Gone. Just, gone.
But we had just talked on the phone about school supplies. This doesn't make sense.
I've decided it simply is not so. Because, see, we were going to retire on a sailboat.
The man of my dreams, the one who gave me his name, ceased to exist. The forest stayed silent, knowing things I shall never know. A quiet sanctuary that would hear my pain yet refrain from responding.
Instinctively, my eyes looked up, half expecting to see God or Aaron peering through a sliver of heaven. I wanted signs and wonders, I wanted a miracle. But my God stayed silent as He often does, without need to oblige my every want.
Noises, though I heard nothing. People, though I was alone. Thoughts, a jumbled mess of words without meaning.
Ironically the statement that changed my destiny left me in quiet surrender. I lay this at Your feet, Father. You allowed this. You are not surprised. You are on Your throne. Not my will but Yours.
Friend, what is the moment when everything changed for you? What monumental event affected your life forever? If it had not occurred, what do you imagine your life would be like? Are you able to trace the footsteps of God before and after that instant in time? Is God hard to see, hard to hear, hard to love? Are you okay with the fact that you may never know why it happened until you see God in His glory? Is there beauty in pain? What treasures can you mine from your experience?
