It's tough watching...

Friends are experiencing sickness.  Husband is extremely ill with brain cancer.  Wife attempts to cope.  Sons come home from where they currently reside, to see to their father.  Week by week we watch this digression.  We watch to see the family already beginning to grieve in their own, barely visible way.

We don't see it ourselves when we are the ones in the midst of the crisis.  But those of us on the outside, watch and wait.....with our friends.

I don't say that God is not able to heal.  I believe that he is very able.  But sometimes death wins out...well, I guess it always wins out but we are never quite prepared for it.

There is such a very fine line between life and death....a mere breath away one from the other.  We try to help the one who is ill, to be present for them, to hear them and encourage them as best we can.  The longer the process of tending to the one who is ill, the more difficult....but also the more we who are helping, have opportunity to grow and change through that process, if we are able.

Questions begin to arise.  Why this particular time?  Why this particular person?  Why me?  Why him?  Why?  Why?  Why?  Have they not suffered enough?  Have you deserted us, God?  Why haven't you healed?  Don't you care, God?  Why don't you take me instead?

Yep, those are the questions that may come up from time to time. 

But it is usually long afterward, after a person has left this world, that we begin to see the big picture and to understand some of the answers to the questions.  Not all.  Some.

Life sometimes leaves us reeling...wanting out....wanting more....wanting less....wanting anything but what we've been given.  It's simply up to us to take what comes our way and move forward.

Life...and death.

Let's enjoy life while we have it. 

Ernie (left) a year ago enjoying a bike ride to church.

Yes, enjoy life...look at an orchid....or

smell a rose....

or two.....

Blessings on your night and let's be thankful for all we have...at this moment....in this day.