New Birth

Life is irony! As my mother, 71 years old, breathed her last breaths in the Intensive Care Unit, the sweet music signifying the birth of a child played over the hospital speaker system -- not once but twice. When we left the hospital in Kentucky, the ground was covered with five inches of snow. When we arrived home in Alabama, the trees in our front yard were budding and flowers were blooming. Life. Death. New life. A cycle that we are so familiar with. Why, then, does it surprise us when it happens? I think it's because we think death only happens to other people and their families. Or perhaps it has more to do with wishful thinking -- that God wouldn't allow such things to happen to us. Our wonderful Sunday School teacher, Mike Crow, was talking about 1 Corinthians 3 yesterday. As he was teaching, I was thinking about how our works are tried as if by fire, but it isn't just our works that are tried. The "fire" of life touches us all. We call them trials and tribulations, suffering and circumstances. And God allows all of it to happen to burn away/purge the sinful aspects of our lives. It's all a part of the "perfecting" process through which we become more like Jesus, the very thing we are predestined to be. More irony? It begins with life then death then new life. As Jesus told Nicodemus, physical birth won't do it. It is only when we die to self that we can accept His gift of new life. And it is that new life that gives me the peace I have in this moment. Peace because He walks with me through this dark valley. Peace because I know I will see my mother again one day. God is so good.