With a Heavy Heart...

We received word yesterday that a student from Covenant passed away after having complications from a stroke. Ben was in Kenya visiting his parents who are missionaries when all of this happened. They decided to MediEvac him to South Africa but during the flight he left us and went home to the Lord.
I didn't know Ben too well but 2 things I will remember about him, was that one he worked hard. He worked for facilities services during the school year and was the person that gave people parking tickets if they were parked illegally. Probably not the easiest job to have and you would think he would be often criticized but amazingly enough, I never heard a student say anything bad about Ben. He was just doing his job and he did it well.
The second thing I will remember about Ben and probably the reason why people never got upset with him was that he was always smiling. He was such a joyful guy and loved life.

It was kind of ironic that I was celebrating my birthday while all of this was happening over the weekend. I often become nostalgic during my birthday and love to think about and look at the path that God has taken me thus far, and wonder what the next few years will be like. In the midst of this I wondered why I have gotten to live 26 years and someone like Ben only got 20(an answer I will never know until God calls me up). It has also been a blessing to feel so loved and appreciated on my birthday. Numerous phone calls, text messages and many, many posts on my facebook wall. Thank you all for the love, really.

It's obviously hard when someone passes away, but what eases the pain in this case is that we know that Ben is in a better place. I can't imagine what his family is going through. The Covenant community is still in shock and wondering why? But as we try to adjust to this sad news we will all grasp on a little tighter to the blessings we have on this earth. I personally will tell my friends and family that I love them more. I also hope that this loss of life will invigorate us to embrace our faith in the Lord.

Why is the world so broken?

I feel like I can't handle anymore bad news. In the past few months I have heard several stories of friends, and family who are going through separations or divorces. I don't understand why this is happening especially all at once. I don't know what else to do but to pray for them.
Throughout my Grad School classes we were constantly talking about the Christian Meta-narrative of Creation, Fall, Redemption, Consummation. I think the hard part of this cycle is that we are constantly still falling. We must strive for redemption in all that we do, but it is so hard when things around us are crumbling and falling to the world. The world of pride, lust, anger, jealousy;SIN.
I am constantly reminded of a message my youth pastor gave me in Junior High. He talked about pain and how without it we would not be able to feel joy. We wouldn't be grateful for what God has done for us in our lives, if our lives were perfect all the time. It would be like living in a fake "shalom" on earth. How many times can I say that I have forgot about God during the good times? But, I can never say that I never thought about God in the hard times.
I'm also reminded of a discussion I had in a literature class immediately following the 9/11 attacks. We discussed what it really means to tell someone, "God bless you."
On the surface, its something we easily say to people, but to really ask God to bless you, means to bring on much more then joy and happiness but also to bring pain and suffering.

So in a sense, God is revealing his blessings around me.