God is in Control

Well, we have been shown this over the past few days!! Shawn's best friend's father was killed in a motorcycle accident on Sunday. What a crazy couple of days....whirlwind of emotions!! I can't even imagine what they must be feeling and going through...

Background info...shall I share the long version or the short version? Even if I try for the short version, it will become long (since I am my father's daughter) so I might as well prepare you for the long version.

Last February Shawn and I were baptized. Shawn was confessing his new found faith in the Lord and I was rededicating mine. It was a wonderful moment that we both shared. Shawn invited Mike, without the expectation of him really coming, but he did!

A few weeks later, Mike found himself at the alter...wanting this "thing" that Shawn had found! The Lord?!?!?

Mike's dad had backslidden significantly over the years, finding himself in drugs and alcohol. Mike kept urging his father to join us at church. After several weeks of encouragement, he made it to church. While sitting in the parking lot, he picks up the phone to find out where Mike is and he hears, "Aw, sorry Dad. We slept in today." With the initial thought to get back in his car and go back home, he thought better and said to himself, "I was brought here today for a reason, might as well go check it out." A few weeks later he finds himself at the alter, giving his life back to the Lord. In weeks to come we witness this man perform a complete 360. He is now clean and sobor, his marriage is going great, he's urging the rest of his family to join him in church, he's sharing his story with any and all who will listen, and he's becoming involved in any and all opportunities possible at the church. In fact, 2 weeks ago he began singing in the church choir.

Which brings us to Sunday. Shawn and Mike have been talking over the past few weeks about Mike taking a new job. Shawn found out this weekend that Mike accepted the position. So as the alters are flooding during service on Sunday, Shawn steps out into the aisle and looks back at Mike. Then he steps back into the pew. "What?" I ask. "I was going to see if Mike wanted to come up so I could pray with him about his new job, but I'll catch him later," he says. "No, get him now. I'll go with you. I'll get my dad to come with us." So Shawn motions Mike to join us at the alter to pray for God's hand in his situation and blessing over his new job, etc., etc. Mike's father, who was already at the alter praising God, as he does so vibrantly on Sunday mornings, joins us in prayer. Others join us as well. But at that point it was just a normal Sunday...and a normal prayer request. Little did we know, that the moment in which everyone walked away and Mike remained at the front of the church with his father for just a few short moments as the song concluded, would be the last moment he would spend with his father.

On his way to choir practice that evening, Bill Rayfield was involved in a fatal motorcycle accident.

WHY LORD? Why would you take such a beautiful person in such a tragic way? He was on his way to YOUR house to worship YOU???

Fast forward to Tuesday. I received an email from my prayer partner at Bible Study, who also knows this family and has been diligent in praying for their situation. However, she expresses to me that even though she's praying hard for them, she finds herself becoming ANGRY with God over what he's done to this man!! He had just shared with the Pastor that very same morning - how happy he has become in the past few months, how great his marriage is, how happy he has been that his sons are in church, etc. etc. So why would you take his life now??

So I respond back to her, basically saying we just have to praise God that he had the opportunity to become right with God over the past few months and we can find peace in the fact he is now in Heaven and worshiping with the Lord face to face. And even though we are sad here on earth, we need to be happy for him because he is in a far better place!!! That's what I told her, but honestly, I'm angry too!

Then I sit down to complete my last day of homework for my bible study, and the passage is Psalm 139 - Scripture that I knew like the back of my hand when I was in middle school and recited it over and over again for a school performance. I memorized this in the King James Version, but the NIV makes it a little easier to understand. The verse that stood out to me and spoke to me was the second half of verse 16, but I'll share the whole passage with you, because it is so beautiful....

1 O LORD, you have searched me and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD.
5 You hem me in—behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,"
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day,

for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place.

When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16 your eyes saw my unformed body.

All the days ordained for me were written in your book

before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.

When I awake, I am still with you.
19 If only you would slay the wicked, O God!

Away from me, you bloodthirsty men!
20 They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O LORD, and abhor those who rise up against you?
22 I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

What am I getting at, you ask?

"All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."

What I'm getting from this is that HE knows when our last day is going to be. There is nothing we can do to stop it. He is in control! He knows our every thought, our every move, everything. He has a purpose for everything. We have to realize that his life (or anyone's life for that matter) has already fulfilled the purpose that God laid out for him to have. And now we must have enough faith in God to accept that.

I always like to find a song that comforts me for each situations I'm going through. Today I feel that Casting Crowns, "Praise You In This Storm" speaks to me.