be still

I am learning that i'll just never know the reasons why things are allowed...i must somehow content my self that God does. And that He has promised His allowance of all things in His love. Last week our dear friends Kent and Nicole had to watch their newborn baby boy Everett suddenly succumb to seizures and could be facing permanent mental and physical damage from a blood clot in his brain.

They wrote this in a recent their email update:

Today I (Kent) read John chapters 5 and 6 to Everett.  I have read these chapters many times before but as I started reading them I realized it is the first time Everett has ever heard them!  This is good news indeed, as Peter the apostle puts it in John 6:68 "You (Jesus) have the words of eternal life." This whole life-changing experience in which we now find ourselves, at the very least, serves to remind us of what is truly important during our very brief, vapor-like existence on this earth.  It is awakening a yearning for heaven that admittedly had been suppressed until now. Our lives have seemed charmed perhaps (certainly blessed) and we had become too comfortable on this earth that is NOT our home.

 "awakening a yearning for heaven"...Ginger and i talked about that last night. That our hearts are always and forever will belong elsewhere...

Anna and i sang this hymn at Gwennie's memorial...one stanza in particular fills me with the longing for eternity.
To this day there are no other words to express the highest and only real hope i have in this life:

Be still, my soul: the hour is hastening on
When we shall be forever with the Lord.
When disappointment, grief and fear are gone,
Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored.
Be still, my soul: when change and greif are past
All safe and blessèd we shall meet at last.