Endings and Beginnings

Life certainly is about beginnings and endings. There are times when you feel like you are caught in the middle, but right now my life is just that: beginnings and endings. My oldest daughter got married Saturday to a wonderful godly man. They want to be on the mission field in a few years, and I couldn't be more thrilled. Ending was the relationship that I had grown very fond of, kind of like sitting in your favorite chair where the pillows and fluff are molded to your body. Then somebody decided that you needed a new chair. They threw out the pillows, and the cusions, put new fabric on it, and even moved it to a different spot in the room. It is still the same chair, I just have to get used to the new rough edges, the new pillows that have not been smushed to the contours of me. In fact, the chair will never be the same. The new chair will eventually feel soft again, but it will never be the same. To some, the old chair will become a faint and distant memory, except to the original owner.

My dear, sweet, daughter has started on the same journey that I did 25 years ago. I barely remember what it was like to be that person, that sister, that daughter. My mother remembers, though. She remembers when I ran away to the neighbors house, she remembers when I played in the mud in the back yard right before church, she remembers old boyfriends, old playmates, old memories that have virtually been wiped away from my heart. They are written on her heart. They will never go away, they will never be obliterated, or snuffed out. When she lays dying she will, if she can, still remind me of the time when.......The endings and the beginnings are happening virtually at the same time.

With God they are always simultaneous. When we begin our walk with Him we are beginning, but is He? He thought of us before the foundation of the world. He held me and my daughter in His hands. We begin, but He had already began. When I lay dying, I will be ending, and beginning. I will also remember the pitter pat of little feet on the stairs and the precious laughter of long ago. Beginnings and Endings......