Last night, the pastor that married Brent and I went to be with Jesus. He was a great family friend, a good cowboy, and a wonderful example of how to live a godly life.

This man knew Brent his entire life and I came to know him about 20 years ago. I will still remember when we were doing our premarital counseling with him and he kept telling us how he was not qualified to do such but it gave a reason to his wife to make dessert every week and so he was okay with doing it. Little did we know that we would one day have even more in common with them and have such a great example to follow.

They had a daughter born with the very rare disease of progeria. As far as I can tell they have handled her life, disease and death with a grace that only comes from someone who is chasing after the Lord with their whole heart.

All this comes at a time when something a friend said to me has continued to repeat itself over in my mind. He said to me to try not to focus on what we consider to be a shortened life span but rather to focus on that is the span of life given to us as a gift from God and to make the most of it.

We as humans (myself included) try to grab the equivalent of a ruler to measure out eternity. We have such a skewed notion of time compared to God. I know that this thought keeps coming back to me because I want to focus on helping Cade focus on his eternity and how he can show others this eternity focus. He is only 10 though so please keep that in mind!! 😂

While I would love to say that I have changed my focus completely, I know that the grief will overwhelm me at times still. But I also know that we need to think about the amazing plan that God has for Cade’s life and not the length of it.

And our dear friend reminds me of that. Not once did I hear the focus of any conversation about their daughter include the topic of why her life had to be cut so short. And this God driven connection we have with this family shows Brent and I how to handle our life’s journey. We can see where they turned to find comfort and strength and model their behavior.

And for that I am truly grateful to know that the Lord destined our lives to be connected. Now I just need to drop my ruler and get to living a life showing God’s love and grace.

Blessings. Lynnette