IN MY UPSTAIRS HALL, family pictures line the wall, photos tracing our genealogies into past decades. I stand looking at a picture of what I believe to be my great-great-great grandmother. I try to recall her name, but must refer to the big family Bible to discover it. In another photograph of my husband’s ancestors, a large family grouping of young and old, stand around the matriarch seated in front.  None are smiling, but on that day they were alive with hopes, disappointments, and ambitions, with the future stretching out ahead of them.

Now their future has become our past, and I look upon their likenesses and wonder what their lives were like.  I wonder if they achieved their dreams.

They lived and breathed from year to year in a world that was palpable and real . . . in an expanse of time that was THEIR time. They probably felt it would go on forever. It was their generation.

But eventually their lives ended and a new generation took its place.

And now it’s our turn.

And it’s our time. But like the generations before us, our lives have a beginning and an end.

Our Turn

When we are in our prime, it seems we will live forever.  There is so much life to live and so much to achieve.  Dreams rise up before us and lure us on, beckoning us to follow into the future. But time marches on and before long, we wake up to find our bodies not functioning as well and realize we are getting older.  Whether or not we managed to surmount our obstacles and attain our dreams, another generation is coming along behind, dreaming new dreams and eager to conquer fresh frontiers.

“All people are like grass,” says Isaiah,
“and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of our God endures forever.”  (Isaiah 40: 7-8)

In this window of eternity we call our lives, each of our days is a gift from God, each brand new, beginning with a sunrise unlike the one before.  And as we live today to the fullest, not in fleeting pleasures or empty and futile worry, but by submitting our lives to God’s bigger picture, TODAY can become a jewel in our crown.

The Happy and the Difficult

Regardless of whether these are happy or difficult days, each one is a gift that God has given to grow us and enlarge our vision of Who He is. Sometimes we will praise Him in the happy, glorious days of success and fulfillment, and other times we will seek him from the valleys of despair, but whichever place we find ourselves on any particular day, it is part of the journey of our life God gives us for TODAY. And it’s a gift.

I love how Sarah Young expresses God’s heart in Jesus Calling: “Some of My children find Me more readily during dark times, when difficulties force them to depend on Me. Others feel close to Me when their lives are filled with good things. They respond with thanksgiving and praise, thus opening wide the door to My presence. I know precisely what you need to draw nearer to Me. Go through each day looking for what I have prepared for you. Accept every event as My hand-tailored provision for your needs.”

And therein lies our hope. Our challenge is to seek God each and every day as a Gift from Him and let Him use our time on earth to the utmost of our highest calling.

Perhaps one day in the future a great, great grandchild will find my picture in a photo album or on the wall and not recall my name. But even though our names may eventually be forgotten on this earth, our hope transcends this world of withering grass.  For on some future day when rainbow colors streak across the sky and God’s music fills our soul, we as God’s children will find our names remembered and recorded in a living book, the Lamb’s book of life. At that time we will be taken to an eternal place of beauty where our deeds become lyrics for a song. Then we will join with all those other generations to celebrate God’s bigger story, the story we can choose to be a part of TODAY as we make choices now to live the part He created us to play.

And one day“the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”  (Isaiah 40:5)

If your hope for today is diminished because of heartache in your marriage, let God speak hope and encouragement to you through my book, Broken Heart on Hold. It’s a book to heal the brokenhearted.