Good Friday

Our kids are home for the weekend! :)

I am thinking on two things today . Christ's sacrifice on the cross and the physical process of aging...

Why do we call this day "Good Friday" if there was anything but goodness in a Father witnessing the brutal death of His Son, until the sight, and the weigh of my sin, became more than He could bear? From the cross, Jesus cried out, "My God, why have you forsaken me?" He was forsaken in His hour of need so that I never will be. As a friend put it, we call this day good because we know how the story ends, but no one there that day, none of the disciples or others, would have called the circumstances "good" at the time!

God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” (Hebrews 13:5 NIV)

I am using a walker, answered a wrong number telephone call this week to, "Grandma?" and am praying to be fully walking before my 40th birthday this summer. What an odd mix of realities! What has been on my mind this week, in addition to the brevity of earthly life,  is the normal process of aging and how blessed I am to realistically envision a future on my own two feet.

Usually by the time someone's body fails enough he or she needs the aid of a walker or other assistance device, there is no going back. The normal process of aging requires the ongoing loss of strength and capabilities. I am so blessed to be recovering and regaining some of what was lost, but my body is only my temporary home. What is regained now is bound to be lost again, sometime in the future. This though both discourages (what's the point of striving to recover then?) and comforts (we are all frail, this world is not my Home) me.

For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him; for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. (Psalm 103:11-16 NIV)