A Moving Picture

Yesterday, we were driving while the sun, still high in the sky, was behind us. The pavement was bright with the light of the sun and was blotted out in but a few places where tall trees cast their shadows on it. I really wouldn't normally notice this sort of brightness because it's not unusual. What was unusual was the enormous, looming cloud before us. The cloud was just close enough to us that I couldn't see blue sky out of my windshield, but it was far enough away from the sun so as not to darken the trees around us and the road ahead of us. As we drove toward the ominous sky ahead, the visible light of the sun gradually paled and the road became dark while a few raindrops splashed on the hood of the car.

God has greatly used some precious friends in my life this past week. They have taught me that as difficult as this journey has been for us this past month, the way will get darker. I have learned from them that it is so vitally important to focus on the source of the light even when the light itself seems hidden from me. I am beginning to comprehend that my greatest hurt and my deepest grief is yet to come.

That moment in the car was a time of great revelation to me. It is as if God chose to metaphorically unveil this journey that I will travel as I wait to kiss Poppy for the first and last times. I certainly believe that the grief which I've felt to this point has been serious and deep, but those friends have shown me that I'm just on the edge of the storm. In fact, I believe that I'm still on the sunlit path and that the deepest darkness, while plainly in view, is still before me.

If not for the sufficiency and wisdom of the Father, I can tell you that I would be overwhelmed with great fear and terrible depression. I saw the storm on a radar just a few minutes later and it was but a small blemish on an otherwise clear and beautiful world; the storm was so tiny compared to the rest of it all.

The Lord's kindness is evident to me in innumerable ways, two of which are the lesson that He taught me through my wonderful friends and the living picture of that lesson that He painted when He allowed for a brief moment that everything around me should appear strikingly similar to everything inside of me.