Two Years…Just Jesus April 21, 2021
April 21, 2021
This life…This journey…There is Jesus! Each of us has a different path in this life…a story that is unique to you and to me. A story that will one day be told to your children, and your grandchildren, and perhaps one or two that will even be told in generations to come. Stories of faith…of hope…of wars fought, both literal and figurative…of love…of births…of struggles and victories…of faithfulness…of strength…of life. They will weave in and out to be intertwined with other stories and other lives.
On this journey of faith and grief and hope, I have traveled to North Carolina. Just me. A solitary drive that has had moments of beauty interspersed with the ordinary moments of traffic and accidents and road construction. Rather like this life…we can journey through such beautiful places in our lives when our hopes and dreams soar for ourselves or perhaps for a child…times when it seems the impossible is possible…when faith does become sight…when our lives are exactly what we hoped and dreamed. The nature of life is that those seasons don’t usually last a long time. Struggles come…the ordinariness of the traffic snarls and the road construction delays that suddenly come upon us. A divorce…a death…a job lost…times when the possible is now truly impossible, when it seems all hope is gone.
But there is usually a glimmer of hope, an abundance of the heart that rises up. In our despair, we grab on to whatever is keeping us afloat. For me, what has kept me afloat is Jesus…just Jesus. Oh how I love Him. He is my hope. Not just a glimmer, but a bright shining light. The things of this world are temporary and only offer temporary hope. Jesus is the hope that endures, the hope I base my life on. Jesus.
Today is two years since Ashley made her home in heaven. Two years when I could not often see to the next day, sometimes the next moment. Two years of unrelenting grief.
Certainly there have been beautiful moments in there. When the light of God’s love still shone through to remind me that He still has a plan for me. Not the plan I wanted, not the journey I envisioned. But this journey is my story…it is Ashley’s story…it is God’s story. And so I will continue to share Ashley’s life and light. But the story that I will always tell is the story of God’s faithfulness, of His abiding presence and peace, of His glorious promises, of His comfort, of His salvation, and of His promise of eternal life in heaven for those who know Him. I pray that you know the Creator of the universe…the Creator of You!
One very poignant phrase has stayed with me this week while I’ve been at The Cove (Billy Graham’s Training Center) from speaker Ron Hutchcraft (adapted to fit my circumstances): My worst day was Ashley’s best day. And because Jesus is my Savior, my best day will one day be with them both…rejoicing…forever!!
There was Jesus!! 💕
