Moments In Time

Sometimes I think about a bullet.

I think about the bullet that killed my great-grandfather over 50 years before I was born.

I guess I do that because I'm a historian...I just think that way, wondering what was, what could have been.

The details of the story are sketchy, but it suffices to say that my great-grandfather was killed in Europe during the waning years of WWII, leaving my great-grandmother and her four young children to fend for themselves as refugees in a war ravaged land.

Eventually, they all found their way to America, starting a new life and setting in motion a series of events that led to my father being born, meeting my mother, and starting a family with my siblings and me.

I guess the reason that I think about that bullet is because of its impact. About how much since has depended on it. For without it, many things might be different.

I dare say I wouldn't be alive without that slender piece of metal. After all, who knows what course the intact family might have taken if their patriarach had not been cut down in his prime?

And there are many moments like this, whether in world history, family history, or the personal stories of our own unique lives. Key junctures on which everything seems to depend.

Decisions once made and actions taken have their results. Things happen to us we often can't control. Our inheritance from past generations is not easily shirked.

On occasion paths we wished we'd had or thought were sure and true get redirected, sometimes starting off in a new direction or--from time to time--working their way back around. Whatever the case, we begin to realize that just as we have no control over the past, so too we have little power over what happens to us in the here and now.

It might make one feel helpless.

Or, as is the case as I sit here thinking about the great-grandfather I never knew, sometimes it just means that we have to trust that God knows what He's doing and spend our days thankful, living our lives as they have come to us.

Because maybe things could have happened differently. It's interesting to think about. But maybe, just maybe, they had to happen that way. And I don't know why. Those thoughts are bigger than me.

But you know what? What we do have is right here in front of us. And when you stop and think about it, so much of what we have comes from hands far distant than our own. Whether or not Providence would have allowed it another way is sometimes immaterial.

So let's just make sure we do something with what we've got.

A Very Long Holiday

It's been so long I'm not even sure I remember how to do this. Guess I'll just have to do my best.

For the next little while, I am planning on sharing thoughts from the book of Mark with my youth group. A few weeks ago we started at verse 1, and now we're just working our way through. My plan is to personally read through the book once a week and really get into the story of Jesus as Mark presents it.

One of my favorite parts of the book--probably one of my favorite parts of the Bible--is where Jesus is about to heal a certain boy. He tells the boy's father that "everything is possible for him who believes." Seems straightforward enough. But then things get a little crazy. The man's response is classic...and haunting:

"Lord, I believe; help my unbelief!”

You see, that's it. Right there. Sometimes that's me. Sometimes that's us. Sometimes we can't believe. Sometimes we don't know how to. Sometimes we've forgotten. Sometimes all we can do is cry out.

We carry a lot with us every day. A lot that hurts us. A lot that confuses us. A lot that takes us away from the ideal perfection we know we want. Like that father we come to Him because there is no other way.

And as that father found we need also know that God's love can reach beyond our inadeqacies.

And it does. That boy is healed.

So we too might despite all our struggles come to God. And though our tongues do stammer and faith sometimes falters we know He still hears us.

And that, I think, is a miracle.