MEANING

Here is the world.  

Beautiful and terrible things will happen.  

Don't be afraid.  

~Frederick Buechner

Flowers never last very long when my husband brings them home.  It's sad, really, that they bloom, get chopped, sunk in a vase with minimal rations of food and water, and wait to die.  The flowers he brought me the other day he got for free, which made me like them even more being that they were roses, but still, no matter what the price, the fact that they are so beautiful and yet spend very little time here has me wondering: Why?

What is the purpose of creating something so delicate and pretty and pleasing and giving it little chance to do the job it was made to do?  In this case, that would be sit on my table and get my husband bonus points, but I'm not just talking flowers here.  I'm talking about everything.

I could sit here all day and babble about how I am a religious person, and I do believe there is a reason and a purpose and a plan.  And don't get me wrong, I'm not disagreeing with or mistrusting or questioning Him.  I'm just trying to sort it out for myself because some days, even the belief and knowledge of a greater plan just isn't enough of a comfort.  

Some days, it's just too much to bear that you have to be one of those people who has to hear, "I'm so sorry, God has a plan," when you have no idea what that plan is and it doesn't make your pain any less.  I'm thinking of a sweet person I know of who on this very day should be opening cards of congratulations and will most certainly have to open cards that say these other, more sad things.  Cards that tell her there is a reason.  That there was meaning to all of this.  

And maybe that's true.  And these people who give her these cards mean well.  But they only serve as a reminder of what she has endured and planned for and now has been so tragically sucked away without explanation.  And yet, she still has to open them, and read them, and say thank you, just the same as she would have done had this been a joyous day instead of a sad one.

When they said, the show must go on, they never told you that it might go on when all you wanted to do was rewind and pause, for basically like, ever.  She's living the show and I doubt she ever anticipated this twist in the plot, and I'm just partially viewing it and it's scaring the Hell out of me.  I feel like I should have watched with my fingers partially covering my eyes and the blanket pulled up to my chin, and I'm worried I may have a nightmare when I fall asleep later.  But short-lived beauty should not evoke fear.  Loss, in itself, should not evoke fear.  Because although it happens, and it is heart breaking, there is still beauty in our lives, some of it left by those who are no longer here.

So I'm just trying to figure out for myself why something, someone, so precious and full of promise and beauty would be given to us for just a moment and then taken.  Because even though I have Faith, I sure don't understand and I sure can't deal with it, and I'm not even the person going through it.

And yet, it is so easy to be thankful for that moment of beauty, because even those little moments are good and sweet and enjoyable.  

I don't think I've figured much out this afternoon, but I have decided that whether or not I know "The Plan," I still think the world is a much better place when someone else is in charge, and the best I can do is to pray for peace for this person, and hope that though today is sad, there is still plenty of beauty in her life.   

And that her Faith will help her see it.