You Make Me Sing

So many people have been dying lately.  It seems that in the past three weeks, I keep getting phone calls and emails and texts with similar sad news.  People in my family... in friends' families... it's been crazy.  Last week my great aunt, who was much like a grandmother to me, passed away.  The hardest blow though was the text I received from my dad this morning.  In it he told me that last night, my cousin Patrick (who was my age) died in a freak electricity accident.

Ever since I was in the seventh grade, about one or two people from my family have died every year.  You would think this would make me immune to the sting.  You would think that I would be so used to the processes of death that it wouldn't really bother me.  But this is one thing that will never get easier with "practice."

After the initial shock of this morning's text (which occurred of course while I was nannying and couldn't really react) and a long time spent in prayer and talking to some family, I collected my emotions.  After I felt settled, I realized that my immediate thought (after screaming "WHATTT?! NO WAY." in my head... probably with my eyes bugging out of my head as I read the text over and over to make sure I wasn't misinterpreting it) was, "But, Lord, I know that You are so good."

I will sing to the LORD all my life; I will sing praise to my God as long as I live. --Psalm 104:33

What??? Could this be???  THE LORD HAS GROWN ME.

My immediate reaction was to praise the Lord.  Literally I kept thinking in my head how there were probably so many members of my family questioning God (His goodness, His mercy, or maybe even His existence), yet all I kept thinking was, "But how could any of them not see that He is good?!"  I'm not sure where Pat stood with the Lord because we never really had a conversation about it.  But I do know that the reason why my cousin even has a chance of being in heaven right now is because Jesus died for him.  Without Jesus bridging the gap, all of us sinners would never even have the hope of approaching the Father with confidence (Ephesians 3:12).  We can rejoice in death because of Christ.  GOD. IS. SO. GOOD.  Yes, the sting of hearing about my loved ones dying still hurts.  But God is growing me in the fact that through the hurt and the pain all I can see is God's grace and love and I want to jump for joy in praise (Job 1:21).

In the past few weeks, each time I've learned of another person passing I hear the Lord reiterate to me, "Alyssa, this isn't a joke."  Too often in my life I play around with sin because I don't "think it will do much damage."  But really I'm just playing around with fire.  It's not about easing out of things.  It's about dropping sinful behaviors cold turkey.  It's about giving your entire self to the Lord.  This life we have isn't a joke.  We think we have all the time in the world, but we don't.  We think they are our own lives to mess with when really, we were born to worship Jesus.  We were bought at a price.  We need to live each moment of it giving Glory to the Lord.  If we want our friends and family to see Him in us, we need to stop playing around in the "one day I'll get it right" mindset.  The. Time. Is. Now.

The Gospel?  It's easy.  Jesus died for you.  And you just need to trust in that and tell Him that you want to be made new and He will do the rest.  Don't worry about getting it all "figured out" and just take the plunge.  This plunge will cause you to soar higher than you've ever soared before.  This plunge will cause you to rejoice in times of mourning.  We don't have as much time as we think we do, friends.  The call is urgent.  The call is to Christ.