Life As we Know It

We're watching live television for the first time in a long time thanks to this week's storm and whatever it did to our DirectTV dish.

This evening that meant watching coverage of the tornado devastation in Oklahoma. I'm not a fan of voluntarily letting someone rip my heart out of my chest for the sake of "entertainment." Unfortunately, on the antenna it was that or a historical perspective of the Challenger tragedy.

Neither is a pick-me-up.

Tomorrow a dear friend will have her first chemo treatment. It is also her birthday.

The two-year old daughter of one of the moms in my monthly Mom's Group was diagnosed with leukemia in the last month and began chemo immediately. She is struggling with fevers and has not been able to go home since her treatments began.

My childhood piano teacher recently died of pancreatic cancer.

Tragedy and the fragility of life surround us. If the guarantee of long life and happiness were what kept this earth spinning, we would have ceased to exist long ago.

THIS is life.

Struggle.

Pain.

And the amazing resiliency of the human spirit.

At any moment we face the possibility of losing all we hold dear. And yet we continue to strive, relentlessly, forward. Loving. Growing.Creating new and all the more beautiful things.

And in that we are reminded ... the everyday is hard. Sometimes it is not fun. Boring, even.

But we live. And the God that gave us life calls us forward into life despite the death that surrounds us.

Because all death leads to new life in the Kingdom of God.

Praise be to God.