The Gift of One DaySample

The Gift of Eternity

Our grandson Jude was given the gift of one day. One sunset. One sunrise. Just one rotation of the planet before he left it. However, the way he unwrapped the divine gift of his one day gave us, his grandparents, a gift that has changed the way we now live every day.

Not long after Jude went home to be with the Lord, our daughter, Megan, sent a couple of verses from the tiny New Testament letter ascribed to Jude, the half brother of Jesus. When we received Megan’s message, the book of Jude wasn’t on our minds at all, but as soon as her text came through, it was as though our Jude were speaking to us directly from heaven. The truth of those two verses just reached out, grabbed us, and pulled us close. The Lord, as He often does, had come and found us in our emptiness, in our sadness. And through words He’d written long centuries before, He said to us, “Relax . . . rest . . . open your hearts.”

“Everything’s going to be all right.”

Not “all right” as in “okay.” But all right.

For many of us, our instinctive reaction is “Things turn out all right? No—things don’t turn out all right.” Maybe they don’t necessarily get worse, but they definitely don’t get better. And that’s hard.

Sometimes the only thing harder than going through the suffering itself is trying to piece together a logical explanation for it. The hardship is real. And the answers, the dots, the clues that might yield some mea­sure of comprehension or reveal purpose in what you’re going through can feel like guesses and rationalizations at best. It doesn’t matter whom you ask or how hard you try to think and pray about it, the whys just keep gnawing away. 

We’re not trying to explain all suffering. Nor are we naively hinting that you will witness a complete resolution of your ordeal within the limited space of your lifetime and that if you don’t, you’re lacking in some spiritual area or harboring a pessimistic, sorry-for-yourself attitude. 

Truth is, it’s not all right that you’ve experienced intense loss or are aching with grief. It’s not all right that Jude’s not here. It’s not all right. It’s messed up. It is not all right. 

That Jude was given only one day on this earth feels all wrong, but we know that one day God will make it all right and we will be with Jude every day for eternity. 

If we’re honest, this is easier to believe at certain times than at others. Yet already, in small ways and occasionally really big ways, God keeps giving us evidence that whispers to our grieving hearts, It’s going to be all right.

Is there an area of your life that seems as though it will never be all right? Spend a few minutes in prayer and take heart in knowing that God is walking through this season of grief with you.