Lost Love

     Who can understand what God's plan is for any of us?  But Who can fathom the depths of His love?  It is really not for us to know why God does anything, but it is up to us to have the faith in Him that He has a plan for each of us. 
    
     These are the first thoughts that come to mind as I ponder the loss of yet another loved one in this life.  A dear friend of mine through grade school and high schoo and into college,Chris Wagner, just lost her brother, Bruce or Skip as everyone knew and loved him.  Skip was only 48.  Way too young for our human minds to understand.  God's calender is different for all of us.  Our age is really not known by our birth date but by how close we are to our death date.  And no one knows when that is.  A 75 year old woman still may have 25 years of life on this earth making her young but a baby, who dies at only 13 months is old at just 1 year.

      I have had to endure many losses over the last five years.  My 19 year old nephew died 5yrs. ago, my father-in-law died 4 yrs ago.  My own dad died 2 1/2 yrs ago and this past summer we lost precious Noah, our great nephew at just over 1 year of age.  In the past I have lost countless aunts, uncles and grandparents.  Each one of these losses are devistating and I miss each one of them dearly.

     But in some way, when you lose a loved one from your school days it hits exceptionally hard. 
We lost Allen Trone shortly out of high school.  Ken Wheat died at a young age, shortly after college.  We lost Sherry to cancer and others to even more tragic deaths over the years.  I currently have a couple of friends that I loved dearly in college who are clinging on to this earthly life due to cancer as I speak.  Each of these will be or already are dearly missed in this life.  And now, just in the last couple of days, we have lost Skip.  But oh, what a wonderous life each of these will have in heaven if they knew their Savior here on earth!  I can't wait to be able to rejoin them and rejoice with them when I meet my maker!

       I have very fond memories of each of these that I have mentioned.  As for this most recent loss, Skip, I remember him most through 4-H and sports in school.  Skip was 2 yrs ahead of me in school.  I can remember as a 6th grader how most of our basketball team looked up to him both literally and figureatively.  Skip was a good role model at this point in his life as well as being very tall so we looked up to him.  I also remember him in high school baseball as part of our "Lickety Split" outfield.  I also remember him and his family as the only famers raising and showing Spotted hogs at the 4-H fair in our area.  There are a lot of  fond memories for me in the by-gone days.

     Oh what a wonderful life it will be for all of those lost loved-ones that knew their Savior here on earth.  I was just reading in the book of Luke this morning that we don't know when that day is coming so we need to be ready in our hearts and except Jesus as our savior.  I can't wait to see those loved-ones again as we rejoice together in the presence of our glorious King in heaven.  Maybe then we will finally realize why God does what he does when he does it.  Or maybe, at that point we just won't care any more.