Life is tenacious

While traveling to see our family members n in Smoky Lake, Alberta, we passed through an area that had once been ravaged by fire. Pushing its way up through the once blackened landscape were young, beautiful trees. The forest is recovering. Beauty is being restored. Life is shouting over death in all of is splendor. The phrase came to mind, "Life is tenacious." Then I remembered John 14:6. Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. I mentioned to Jim that I don't recall a funeral sermon that emphasized, "Jesus said, 'I am... the life!." Life is tenacious because He is life!

Our new friends from Syria arrived yesterday. There are countless untold stories behind the father's deeply emotional statement, "God has kept us safe. Praise God!" The group that greeted them was emotional, almost giddy with excitement. The family members were happy to be here, but exhausted. I wondered how much of that was exhaustion from traveling to the opposite side of another continent, and how much of it was long-standing emotional strain from everything they've seen and experienced. Then I looked at their bags and realized, "This is all they own. Generations of family keepsakes have been left behind." This morning, I chose to look at pictures of their home city. The "before" images were amazing; the "after" pictures were utterly heartbreaking.

Then my mind wandered to everything else that's flooding the news. Mass shootings, fear of a third world war, sex scandals and the social media #metoo campaign, broken marriages, fire flattening thousands of acres and whisking lives away, hurricanes... Death, emotional, relational and physical, is everywhere. Brokenness seemed to saturate everything. I was getting overwhelmed.

About that time, I looked outside. The silhouetted trees were gently swaying against the fuchsia and soft grey rippling across the morning sky. God reminded me, "There's still beauty. I am still God. I am the Way, the Truth and the Life for every broken heart." My prayer for these new friends and for every individual who comes to mind who is suffering deeply is, "God, be Life to them. Be Beauty. Be their Healer."

Life is tenacious, because He is Life! Praise God!