life goes ON

For some reason, whenever I think about my childhood, and then I think about how old I am now, I get the overwhelming urge to cry.

I don't, though. I haven't cried for a while, actually.
(Not since a revelation about God as Father I have yet to tell you about, from six months ago, which made me weep. But that's a different story...)

In some ways I wish I could have my childhood back.
But in others, I realized something.

When I was four, going on five, my older brother told me how kindergarten "isn't like preschool. You have to go to school EVERY DAY." Quite rightly. I was scared, and didn't want to leave the safety of my home. But kindergarten was a broadening experience and led to, of course, early schooling. When I was thirteen, going on fourteen, it was time to leave that same schooling I had hated to go into. I said goodbye to all my friends at our grade eight graduation and yes, we shared some tears, and hugs, and all that. "Life will never be so good," I thought. And then grade nine came, and I settled in; we all did. And by the end of highschool, I wouldn't have gone back to grade eight, or any of my previous years.

At the end of grade twelve, in the last month, I counted off every day as one day closer to the last happy one with all my friends around me. Twenty, eighteen, two weeks, one week, five, four, three, two, one, graduation. That didn't pass easily either. It went out with a big parade, but it went out. It was over. It ended.

And now it's eight months later and I'm still alive.
And I still have happy moments and sad moments and moments with friends and moments alone and difficult times and rewarding times and sheerly human experiences and ones in which God reveals Himself little by little. That hasn't changed.

So, stop, Luke. Stop thinking it's the end of the world. It's going to get better, and you're going to be sad to leave this, where you are now. But that won't matter. Why? Better stuff is coming after it. And when that ends, something even better will follow. And when that ends? Somewhere down the road, heaven, if you believe in it. And it'll be just as scary, because the way there is and looks more like death than any previous going out. But you'd be a damn fool to try and keep things how they are forever.

Press on. Don't wish you had your childhood back. New things are not bad by nature.

"I only know that in every city the Holy Spirit warns me that hardships are facing me. However, I consider my life worth nothing to me, if only I may finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me... Now, I know that none of you will ever see me again."