I haven't had this kind of confusion of emotion for years.
This week is my daughter's wedding. We've planned it for months. But unexpectedly (This is always the case), my family lost my mother's sister on Saturday morning. I was getting ready for visiting missionaries to have dinner with us on Saturday when I received the call from my brother.
"Gary."
"Hey Donnie, what's up?"
"Bad news. Aunt Betty died this morning."
So, we took care of our guests for the weekend. We had church. Then, we got in the car and drove to Virginia for a funeral. You don't plan for funerals. You just respond and go.
I remember a few years ago when we had a similar week. Robin and I had just found out we were pregnant with our first child (Stephen). We were elated. In the same week, Robin's paternal grandfather died.
I wrote a song for my father-in-law and my wife that week. The chorus went like this:
"An old man dies,
a child is born.
A life to shout.
a death to mourn."
I suppose I'm not the first to feel both the joy and sadness of life at once. King Solomon certainly spoke of it in the book of Ecclesiates as he said,
To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under the heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die... a time to weep, and a time to laugh."
I'm drawing on the grace of God this week. I'm praying that it will extend to my entire family. God gives us the capacity to laugh and to mourn at its appropriate time.
In Christ I can clear the emotional confusion. Today, I can weep. Tomorrow I can laugh. Somedays I do both. It's OK. Christ gives us this grace.
In Christ I can mourn at a funeral and celebrate at a wedding. Neither was a surprise to Him. He knew the hour for both beforehand.
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