Events that change everything

In life, we are constantly learning, changing, growing. Usually it's a gradual process and maybe even imperceptible. I can look back at several seasons in my life and see how I changed or grew (or maybe just got pissed) becuase of those times, but it was not a major change, just little things. And then, there are those few events that markedly changed everything. Times that the world as I knew it seemed to stop spinning.

Most recently, we lost a family friend to cancer. He was a child. Somebody's baby, their sweet little boy. He was Nathan and he went to be with Jesus about a year before Makafui was born. His passing has shaped my parenting more than I could have known or would have guessed.

We drive by Nathan's grave on a regular basis and I can't help but to look right at it and let my heart and mind go there. I think of his sweet, sweet family. That sweet family who loves God and seeks to serve Him and has "done everything right." I think of that family and the Nathan sized hole that will forever be in their hearts. I look at my sweet, wonderful, gorgeous, precious baby and I understand their loss in a new and heavier way.

When Nathan passed, I really had to deal with God and with my own heart in many areas. I don't really have any answers, but I think I do have a better attitude and perspective. I've learned that when something I thought I knew about God doesn't jive, I am wrong, not God. He has not changed. God was not wrong or bad to allow Nathan to die. I don't understand it and I probably won't here on earth, but that's okay. I've really come to grasp that we are not promised tomorrow and each day with the people we love is a wonderful gift that should be cherished. My trust and belief that God is a good, good God even when these terrible things happen has been solidified. I wholeheartedly believe that God loves us more than we can ever know and bad things can and will still happen. It seems a contradiction, but it is not.

Sometimes, when it's 2 o'clock in the morning and I've been up with Makafui 4 times already and all I want to do is climb in bed and sleep for a couple of days, I think about Nathan. I pray for his family. But more importantly, I remember that we aren't promised tomorrow; I breathe in my sweet baby and look at his chubby little face, touch his soft curly hair and I ask God for many, many more tomorrows.