Given and Taken
August 6, 2005 (Zach's 20th Birthday)
This is what I am determined to live my life by in the 20th year:
Everything I have, God has given to me, and everything that I have lost, God has taken from me - all according to His will, and I will thank him for both.
Every opportunity I have, every person in my life, every skill or talent, every longing I have is from God. God has given me the chance to live and work in Italy for 2 years. He's given me the chance to see and do things that most people will never be able to see or do in their life, they only dream about them and see them in movies. Wheter I like it or not, I have to deal with people every day, there's no escaping it. Some of them are easier to deal with than others. I thank God for the friends and other strong Christians that he's brought into my life, I thank him for the chance to witness to those that are lost, and there are many of them. I ask God for wisdom and tactfulness in dealing with the people in my life that I may not exactly enjoy being around. But God has given them to me, He has put them in my life, and that in itself is enough for me to see that there is a reason. There may not be many things that I am exceptionally tallented in, but nonetheless I still love to do. God has given me the ability to do these things, and I will use them to give back to Him what I can.
But I will not only rejoice in the things that God has given from me, I will also praise Him for the things that He has taken. He's taken me from my home, He's taken relationships from me. Some of my freedoms He's taken away by putting me in the Air Force.
It seems to me, however, that God does not take away without giving something back.
He took me from my home - but gave me the chance to see the world.
And some things He gave to me for a time, but never intended it to last on this world. Please, God, help me to accept that. Some things were only meant to last for a season, and that's the end of it.
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We read this for the first time just a day or two before Sunday, Aug 19th. In church our worship leader wants to teach a new song to the congregation: Blessed Be the Name of the Lord - providential? a "word" from God? a "tender mercy?"
Then Pastor Hopper's sermon addressed the question of "Why?" that he was asked to answer by a Russian woman named Olga who just a few weeks ago lost her young son in an automobile accident. He was a "son" like Matt Smith ( http://mattsupdates.blogspot.com) and our Zach. She knew Where he was, Who he was with, When he went, What happened, but she wanted to know Why?????
I'm certain many of you want to know WHY Zach died too. I've been blessed to not be troubled by that because through other tender mercies of God, I knew God "had need of him" for His own good pleasure. I know that our stories are just part of a larger story about HIM. Life and death: it's not so much about us as it is about Him. One day we'll know the whole story, including all the subplots involving us, and I am certain it will be the most wonderful, incredible, beautiful story! If you are troubled by the WHY QUESTION, PLEASE CONSIDER listening to Pastor Hopper's sermon at http://www.northparkepc.org/default.asp when it goes online. The date is August 19, 2007.
If we had had "Given and Taken" when the services were held for Zach, we would have used it as his own eulogy. And we would have just added one thing. Where he says "God took me from my home, but He let me see the world," we would have added on, "Then He took me from the world, and let me see Him, the whole universe and all the starry heavens!"